Dear readers of ThisCantBeHappening!:
Despite the best efforts of grass-roots organizers to defend the principle of net neutrality, an ideologically driven Federal Communications Commission, now led by a majority of Trump appointees, has voted to end the rule guaranteeing equal access to the internet for all websites and users. Even worse, as the McCarthy Era-style witch-hunt claiming a vast conspiracy by Russia to “undermine faith in American democracy” continues, the huge oligopolistic internet companies like Facebook, Google, Microsoft and others that control the web are working to actually censor what appears on it, and to limit the searchability of sites like this one.
We cannot point to hard evidence of this, but can say that since this kind of campaign began, our daily hits have fallen by 50%. Coincidence? We doubt it. Other progressive websites large and small are reporting similar impact on their readership.
Attacks on the free flow of news and information are overt, like the Trump administration’s latest order to ban certain words and concepts in federal reports and studies, like: fetus, science-based, evidence-based, transgender, diversity, vulnerable and entitlemens. But attacks are also being done in secret, both by the government and by powerful private companies.
This is a request for you, our readers, to help us fight back by spreading the word on your own about this site. In a few days, hopefully, we will be adding buttons at the end of our stories that will allow you to easily use Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Stumbleupon and other social media vehicles to promote stories that you think are important to people you think should be reading them. This will get around the problem of people not being able to find them through simple searches.
In the meantime, please note that once you click on any story on the homepage of ThisCantBeHappening!, there is at the bottom of each page of any story the icon of an envelope with the words: “send by email.” By clicking on that icon, you are brought to a page that allows you to list three email addresses at a time (per hour!), separated by commas, and to send a short message explaining why you are forwarding the link to the story.
Please do this everytime you read a ThisCantBeHappening! article you appreciate. The more people you alert to our work, the more our readership will grow, despite the growing threat of censorship.
Meanwhile, please consider also making a donation of any size to support our work. Just click on the handy, easy to use “Donate” button at the top right corner of this page, which will allow you to use Paypal or to just make a donation with a credit card, or alternatively, send cash or a check to: Dave Lindorff, POB 846, Ambler, PA 19002. (We’re a collective, not a corporation, so we cannot open a TCBH! bank account).
Thank you!