Fireside Chat Ep. 136 — Facebook Censors PragerU | Fireside Chat

Hello everybody. I'm Dennis Prager. Welcome to this week's fireside chat, which is what number is this? About 140. What are we up to here? 136. By the way, there was a really, really powerful and popular one. When I talked about the concept of being safe, that's something that I really recommend that you see. What number was that? 132. Look, I hope you'd see them all because I, I try to say things that are worthwhile and they're not worthwhile just for a week. So just, just a thought. Anyway, welcome to my home. This is Otto, the famous Otto, I might add, who falls asleep perfectly on cue when the lights and cameras show up, he goes into his bed and all is good. And he is a source of comfort, not in the, you know, he's not like my emotional support dog. He's comfortable in that looking at him makes you relaxed because Otto's motto is the old mad magazine, Alfred E. Newman motto. What? Me worry, right? That's, that's Otto's look on life. I want to remind you that we have a special scholarship offer through Prager U's partnership with Colorado Christian University. CCU is offering a $1,000 scholarship to Prager U subscribers for online classes through CCU online. CCU offers over 90 degree program options and all courses are based on a Christian centered worldview. But as I always remind you, if you have no faith or another faith, you are perfectly welcome at CCU. Most classes are only five weeks long, so you can take one class at a time and still have time for life. If you're interested in taking advantage of this great offer, visit PragerU.com slash CCU. All right, so I always begin with some comments and then I take your questions and it's a very full half hour. So I have troubling news for you and that is that Facebook, which is an area that we publicize all of our PragerU videos, has now been granted the opportunity to label whatever the left does not agree with as misinformation or false news videos that we've had up for years from professors. We have a video up, for example, on global warming by a professor of climatology at MIT. That's pretty distinguished title, correct? So they don't agree with what he said. There was now an oversight board. Mark Zuckerberg, six months ago, Mark Zuckerberg said of Facebook, it's not for me to judge what is true, what is false, what is right, what is wrong. We are a forum for the world. He got so much attack from the New York times and the rest of the left and he caved in everybody. Well, not everybody. Most people cave into the left because they're, they're intimidated by the left. When you are smeared by the mainstream media, it's a very difficult thing to have the courage to stand up. Zuckerberg meant well, but he doesn't have courage without courage. Everything is useless. And so he formed a board, uh, some truth determining board at Facebook said, you guys decide I'm out of this. Most of the people on the board are on the left. And so they have a left wing climate activist organization, which has labeled two of our videos, false news. It's not even news. That's the irony. So they've laid that misinformation. So let me explain something. Misinformation means differs with the left. It has nothing to do with truth. Nothing. In fact, truth is not a left wing value. I've said this my whole life. Well before PragerU was ever founded, it is not one of their values. So it is, this is, this is not an issue of misinformation or false news. The issue is simple. The left doesn't agree with it. So they label it misinformation. Exactly what the Soviets did with regard to the Western press. Oh, that's misinformation. This is all taken from what the old Soviet union or other communist regimes would do. This is totalitarian stuff. We are at a very serious tipping point in the United States of America on the, on the issue of free speech. As you well know, the universities began the assault on free speech and now it is continued to the social media. So look at, look at what is now, what comes up here. You get, you get this, uh, you get this message going to PragerU sites. PragerU page restrictions. Your page has reduced distribution and other restrictions because of repeated sharing of false news. There is not a word of false news. This is a lie. This is the lie. This is the Orwellian Soviet type lie that is being used. If you differ with the left, it's false news. We have a video on whether or not polar bear numbers are, are increasing or decreasing. It's not a matter of false news. There are different scientists who take different positions, but you are not allowed different positions. The official position is from the left that polar bears are, are diminishing in numbers. There are many scientists. I checked this myself. I was curious. There are many scientists who say, no, they're not decreasing. Some may might be in this area. Some are not in this area. By the way, it is ironic. Three quarters, I believe it is a polar bears live in Canada. 600 are allowed to be killed each year by native Canadians. So is that interesting? It's disappearing, but because native Canadians like to eat polar bears, it's a traditional food or whatever reason they are allowed to kill 600 of them. Now, let me just ask you if, if, if there is an extinct creature and your tradition is to kill extinct creatures, would that be allowed? Either? It's a, it's a bizarre, uh, Canadian law or which defies common sense or they're not disappearing. Right? I mean, what, what if somebody said to give an American analogy? Well, uh, our group loves eating bald eagles. It's been a tradition. And I'm not mocking the tradition at all, but I'm saying what if one did, would they be allowed? Of course not. Because the bald eagle is an endangered species. But anyway, putting that completely aside, do you see what is happening? You differ with the left. He has given control over Facebook. Zuckerberg has to the left and this is what is happening. They claim YouTube, Google and Facebook claim to be open forums, but they're not. This is the proof. Here's another one. We also take action against entire pages and websites that repeatedly share false news, reducing their, reducing their overall news feed distribution. And sweet. And since we don't want to make money off of misinformation or help those who create it profit, these publishers are not allowed to run ads or use our monetization features like instant articles. When I testified at the U S Senate and you can see my testimony, uh, ironically on YouTube, Dennis Prager, U S Senate, I guess, and find it. And I said that one day we will say, you know, they, they came after the conservatives and I said nothing cause I wasn't a conservative. And then they came after me and there was nobody else to speak up for me. And I was mocked by the left for it. It was hyper dramatic, but it is completely true. And, and it, it, it is getting worse. I don't know if the only answer might, might well be that the monopolies of Google, YouTube, and, and Facebook need to be broken up by the government. If these people are going to be given absolution from being sued for their own libel, anything that they print is libel, which is fine. Then they have to open up for everything. They can't have it both ways. They claim to be open. They're lying. This has already occurred. As you know, with, uh, with Google, which owns YouTube and, uh, putting our videos on the restricted list, including some 10 commandments videos, they don't want children to see it. It's labeled pornography. So I look at this, none of this shocks me a, because I've always known the left suppresses freedom. There is no exception in the history of the world. Since the left was invented between from Karl Marx to Vladimir Lenin, uh, to the, uh, uh, to, to the social media of the, of America today, there's never been an exception. Liberals like free speech, leftists loath it. It's one of the big differences between liberal and left. I have a video. Maybe they'll even call that misinformation that I, after all, I'm making a distinction between liberal and left. Misinformation means differs from the left. This, this is a, a, a challenge. I said, I'm not surprised. I'm not surprised because I have a dark view of human nature, as many of you know, and for good reason, look at the history of the world. Never think that America is exempt from human nature. We have had the freest society in the world because it is such, okay, all's good. Oh my God. He is out today. Everything okay, Otto? Yeah, good boy. Okay. We are not exempt from the horrors that have happened in other societies. The only reason America has been free is because we have defined ourselves as America, the free, the statue of liberty, free speech. We have always had more free. We have, it's a constitutional allowance in America that you, the government can never suppress speech, but apparently we don't need the government to do it any longer because it is now done by private enterprise run by the left. I, I, I, uh, I need your support to let these people know, uh, you, you are no longer a free platform. This is not misinformation. First of all, even if it were, let us say we, we have, let's say we had a site. The earth is flat. That should be allowed. I have argued, this is a very difficult subject for me. America is one of the only countries in the world that allows Holocaust denial. Holocaust denial is one of the most despicable evils I am aware of. Not only did 6 million Jews get slaughtered, slaughtered on mass by the Nazis, but then for people to come and say, it didn't happen. This is the scum of the earth, such people. But in America, you are allowed to be the scum of the earth. That's the way it works. In Europe, you cannot deny the Holocaust. You can be fined or jailed for denying the Holocaust in European countries, but not in America. Nazis marched in Skokie, Illinois. When I was a kid, Skokie, Illinois was where many Holocaust survivor Jews lived. And the Nazis marched there because they wanted to shove the swastika in the face of these people, all of whom had lost much of their family to the murderous Nazis. But the ACLU and liberals and Jews said in America, Nazis can march. And that was the correct decision. Now it's not even a matter of Nazis marching. Now it's a matter of a mainstream, decent, fine organization. We have four Pulitzer prize winners. We have, we have professors from, from Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Berkeley, UC San Diego, all over the place, giving lectures. We have four or three or four former prime ministers. This is a very distinguished site, PragerU. Very. We take information and truth unbelievably seriously. I have a religious commitment to God to tell the truth. I go through every ad that I read on my national radio show to make sure there was no word in there that does not exemplify truth. And then these low life leftists have the audacity to say misinformation. If you do not see these people as a mortal threat to American freedom, it's because you don't want to see it. And I don't blame you for not wanting to see it. It's lousy to confront bad news. This is a very bad development in American life. What is happening at Facebook, giving leftists veto over what is allowed to advertise on Facebook. Okay. All right. Let me go to, uh, I had actually another topic, but this was the latest check out my column. It's a very interesting, a professor at Harvard spoke about how evangelical Christians are against the lockdown in America because they don't value life as much as others do because they believe in an afterlife. What did he call it? This is really mind blowing. Read my column on it today because it's, it's, it's titled the lockdown evangelicals and the afterlife, a response to Steven Pinker, a professor at Harvard. He actually tweeted belief in an afterlife is a malignant delusion. This is, uh, anyway, as far as I'm concerned, he could have fruit. By the way, I've had Pinker on my show. I want people I differ with on my show. Unlike Facebook, I welcome people who don't agree with me. It's one of the biggest differences between the right and the left. We love having debates. We love having dialogue. They love shutting people down. The left has always been anti-freedom and despicable. Liberals are not. Liberals are weak because they don't confront the left except people like Dave Rubin and, uh, and, uh, Alan Dershowitz. There are liberals who confront the left, but they're very rare. Okey dokey to our first question. What, how much time did I already take up? Okay, perfect. Here we go. Question the video question, the video question, okay. Uh, dear Megan, you may have more magic fingers than I do, but I, I'm not getting anything done no matter how much I press. God, if it's not listening to me. Oh, here we go. Okay. Hello. Hello, Mr. Brager. My name is Stan Alger. I'm 18 years old. I currently attend Austin preparatory school in Reading, Massachusetts, and I happen to be a teacher at the Austin Preparatory School. My question for you today is what should be the appropriate response to growing in powerful monopolies in the United States? Should the government ever consider stopping corporations that get too big or too consuming, or should these monopolies be left to local state or perhaps even no regulation at all? Thank you so much and God bless. God bless you. I'll tell you not many 18 year olds are thinking about monopolies and what the government does. Look, we in fact do have antitrust regular regulations and legislation and it, it can become an issue. I remember when, what was it called? Ma Bell was broken up. There was one telephone company basically for the whole country and it was divided up into, you know, AT&T and Verizon and others developed T-Mobile and others. And it's, it's worked out better. Monopoly of any type is not good. I'm religious, but I don't want to see even religious monopolies. I, I, I actually think it's healthy when religious groups are divided. You know, they, the Protestants in the United States, uh, created a very free, the freest country in the world. And it was overwhelmingly Protestants. The founders were overwhelmingly Protestant. And that's just the fact. And part of the reason some historians have theorized, I found this very interesting is they weren't united. You know how many cat, you know how many Protestant groups there are, right? Presbyterians and Methodists and Quakers. I mean, it's endless. Whereas Catholics were pretty much united and Protestants were divided. And there, there is some, there is, it wasn't a monopoly. There was no Protestant monopoly. Protestants themselves had so many divisions. That's why I have never been a fan of let's all be united. I mean, on basic things, I would love everybody to unite around the 10 commandments. Uh, there are certain basic things I would love people to unite on, but I think it's important that goodwilled people following their conscience are, are not in full agreement. That's in the area of ideas, how much more so in the area of economic power or the worst is the social media power. That's the vehicle of dialogue on earth. If they start suppressing it, we're in trouble. So yes, uh, I think there is a role to look into these things. I've actually advocated it's as ironic. Do you know that in the 1990s when, uh, when I think it was the nineties, when Amazon was in its beginning decade, I actually had Jeff Bezos on my radio show to give him support because they were, it looked like they may go wonder. And I so loved the book reviews, uh, uh, and the access to all the books I wanted that Amazon allowed. And of course I love bookstores that I had him on to give him support. And it's so ironic because now I'm advocating do as much ordering as you can from other retail operations on the internet. It'll take you two minutes more. It's more convenient. Amazon, you just check off a thing and it's done because they have your credit card and everything. But I try to order as much as possible from other retail operations on the internet because I want to keep them alive. Thank you again, Stan, and thank you for being a Prager force. Okay. Anthony in Aiken, South Carolina, what would you regard as being the life lessons learned from privation during the shutdown? I think it's the realization that the ability to get anything you want when you want is not guaranteed. I gave a actually, where did I give this talk? Oh yes. It's coming up every year. We give a commencement address, a PragerU commencement address. This year it was supposed to be a Nikki Haley, former U S ambassador to the UN, but because of the travel issues and so on, she's not giving it this year. I hope she'll give it next year. So I'm giving it this year and I, I offer three lessons from what is going on to you young people as my commencement address. And one of them is gratitude to appreciate things before you lose them, which I have. I, I know how bad the world history is. That's why I have walked around happy almost all of my life. I couldn't believe how good I have it in America. Now all of a sudden when it was taken away and I believe largely foolishly, truly foolishly that as I am speaking to you in California, you still can't go into a restaurant when, when there are so few people who have died from this illness in California of a state of 40 million, it's, it's immoral. Watch the commencement address when I give it. Mary, Colorado, dear Dennis in episode one 24, you explained that you resolve to never have expectations every day of your life. Is that the same to you as being grateful for all that you have or that unfolds each day? I'm interested to know if you find those perspectives to be the same or perhaps the flip side of the same coin. Okay. Yes. Uh, I, uh, this I got, interestingly enough, I studied many subjects including comparative religion. When I was in England, my professor was a Buddhist, an English Buddhist, not an Asian Buddhist. And he taught me, he taught those of us in the class. I'll never forget what he said one day. He said, Buddhism holds that all pain in life comes from two things. Desires and expectations. Therefore Buddhism says drop desires and drop expectations. And then I realized that bothered him. He doesn't want to drop desires. He's okay. I know it's all good. It is all good. Whoa. He's really out today. I mean, usually this moves him a little bit. All right. There's nothing I can do. Be that as it may. So when I heard that I was 19 years old or 20 years old, 20 years old. And I heard that I was doing my, my third year in college in England. When I heard that I, it was like a light went on and I said, wow, that's right. Pain comes from expectations unfulfilled. I will from now on have no expectations. I'm very mind centered. When I make up my mind, I do it. And so I made up my mind. I'm not going to have expectations, but I didn't accept part one of the Buddhist formula. Desires are good. Expectations are bad. That's my view. I'm not a Buddhist. I mean, I desire, I desire health. I desire to have a family. I desire that the world be at peace. I have thousands of desires. They're a good thing. You, if you, with no desires, nothing will ever get done in a society. Society is the result of desire. You can desire the wrong things. That's obvious, but desires are good. That's how progress, good progress is made. So I took half of the Buddhist formula and it has shaped my life. And in my book on happiness, I have a chapter on not having expectations. That is the root to my gratitude. I expect nothing. So if I have anything, I'm incredibly grateful. That's correct. Okay. Olivia, 22 Lebanon, Pennsylvania. Hi Dennis. Hi Olivia. I was wondering what your opinion is about hustle culture. The idea that one can only achieve success by sacrificing sleep time with family and friends, vacations and weekends. Do you think one could ever retain true happiness or a fulfilled life when living by these standards? I'd never heard the word hustle culture. Are you familiar with it? And that's what it means. That's, she defined it exactly right. Okay. I have, my connotation of hustle is to like cheat somebody. He hustled the guy you see. So I didn't know exactly what was meant, but okay. Everything in life is attention and it's all a matter of price paid. I, I can't overemphasize the following. A wonderful, intelligent way to lead life is to ask before everything you ever do. What is the price? We think about it only one time. We always think about it when we buy something. How much is it? Now, why do you ask how much is it? Because you debate, is it worth the price or not? Right? How much does that restaurant charge for an entree? $20? That's a bit too steep for me. So I'll go to a place where it's $15. Okay. So you always ask it, that's called price, but we don't do it for anything else, but should be done for everything. What is the price paid? I always give the example for getting married. What is the price paid for not getting married? What is the price paid for having children? What is the price paid for not having children? What is the price paid for having a full-time job? What is the price paid for not staying at home with your kids? Everything. You you're not mature if you don't understand everything has a price. So that's the answer to this question. What are you prepared to give up and what are you getting in return? Then you have put all your eggs in the professional success basket and you may end up with professional success, but you'll have no other eggs. And what if that doesn't work out? And what if it does? So that's what you have to ask. What's the price? What's our timing? 29 or say goodbye. Listen, please tell everybody about these, about these fireside chats and PragerU because of what Facebook is doing to us. And we we need your help in spreading good word. I mean, when you think about it, is there, is there one minute of, of anything misinforming about the fact that we're not doing or, or, I mean, we're so adamant. You disagree doesn't mean misinformed. This is a, this is serious stuff. My friends, America's being changed before our eyes. So help us help maintain liberty and not just in America because these things are obviously around the world. Anyway, thank you for being with me. Is this something you wanted me to add? We have a petition. Oh, good. And that is, say it again. We're including the link. Yeah. Okay. Listen, folks, you know what I always say about good people. There are three types of good people. Those who do nothing, those who fight and those who help the fighters. We're fighting. Those who help the fighters are as important as the fighters. Please don't be in the third group. Okay. See you next week. I'm Dennis Prager. That's Otto. Bye bye. CCU exists to train leaders. We want to build the church. We want to engage the culture, but we want to help you prepare for your calling. Our adult and graduate studies programs give adult students the opportunity to earn their degree at their own pace. Whether you're studying at home, the office or somewhere in between. The possibilities for online education are now endless. However, many students who enroll in online programs don't finish. Why is that? Because they don't have the support team to help them get through the program. And that's part of the CCU difference. We do have that team to help you not only orient you to studying online, but also to help you finish the program, get your degree and achieve your goals.