Commentary: A Famine of The Word (Part One)
The Worldwide Web
#1368c
Martin G. Collins
Given 18-Mar-17; 12 minutes
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God's Word has been preserved and distributed on media ranging from animal skins to papyrus to the printed word to the internet. Sinister forces have reared their ugly heads to censor the Word of God, calling it intolerant, malicious hate speech. In recent years, mean-spirited billionaires such as Mark Zuckerberg and George Soros have commandeered Apple, Twitter, Google, and Facebook, all ostensibly created for promoting free speech for the purpose of censoring comments not conforming to the Satanic "progressive" agenda. Apple has jettisoned an app that promotes the pro-life view, and Facebook has openly partnered with gay activists, effectively censoring any comments questioning the morality of their lifestyle. Additionally, the United Nations is actively pursuing power to police online platforms, censoring any speech that does not conform to politically correct standards. The famine of the hearing the Word prophesied in Amos 8:12 is ready to descend on our people like a hideous locust plague. Even in the darkness of media control and media manipulation, we are assured that "everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened."
transcript:
The Word of God has been preached to the world in many ways, depending on the resources and technologies available at the time. Word of mouth, animal skins, papyri, scrolls, books, radio, and television have all been used, often concurrently.
And now, the Internet has a far more reaching and much lower cost than even older technologies. Although each was effective in its own time, eventually newer and more effective means cause the older to pass away. By far, the worldwide web is the most effective way to reach the most people in preaching the Word of God to the world.
Increasingly now, we are seeing an organized and determined effort to censor free speech. How far away from experiencing a total shut down of Christian speech and writings are we? We know that there will be a famine of the word. The handwriting is on the wall. There is a verbal wall being erected that is beginning to affect the whole world!
Let me start with March 12, 1989, when the computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee submitted a proposal to CERN for what would become the worldwide web.
To mark its 28th birthday, Berners-Lee—now founding director of the World Wide Web Foundation—has written an open letter discussing three of the biggest threats facing the web today that he is "increasingly worried about," and believes "we must tackle in order for the web to fulfill its true potential as a tool which serves all of humanity." The three great secular threats are: Losing control of our personal data; the spread of fake news; and the lack of regulation around political advertising.
From fake news to unregulated political advertising, we can see how Big Tech companies' products can have dangerous effects on politics and society. In her May 25, 2012 article, "Are Facebook, Apple and Google Censoring Christian Speech?" Jennifer LeClaire wrote,
Social media and smartphones are changing the way people communicate and consume information. And there’s a clear bias against Christian speech.
That’s why the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) is wading into a unique and volatile communications freedom issue—the collision course between free speech on the Internet and the free market power of new media companies like: Apple, Google and Facebook to block viewpoints they don’t agree with.
"The stakes are continuing to rise on this dilemma: Last week, YouTube, owned by Google, banned a message by orthodox Rabbi Yehuda Levin, labeling it “hate speech” because it criticized the gay rights movement,” said Craig Parshall, NRB senior vice president and general counsel, who heads the John Milton Project for Religious Free Speech. “For similar reasons, YouTube also censored a Christian youth ministry, You can Run but you can’t Hide International … This is a problem that cannot be ignored."
Here are some of the disturbing findings from the John Milton Project for Religious Free Speech’s new report, “True Liberty in a New Media Age”:
Apple has twice removed applications that contained Christian content from its iTunes App Store. In both instances, Apple admitted that these apps were denied access because it considered the orthodox Christian viewpoints expressed in those applications to be “offensive.” One app had expressed the traditional, heterosexual view of marriage as set forth in the Bible; the other had stated the view that homosexuality is inappropriate conduct that can be changed through a Christ-centered spiritual transformation. Of the 425,000 apps available on Apple’s iPhone at this time, the only ones censored by Apple for expressing otherwise lawful viewpoints have been apps with Christian content.
Google has committed past practices of anti-religious censorship. For content reasons, it refused to accept a pro-life advertisement from a Christian organization, an issue that prompted litigation in England. . .. Google ... blacklisted certain religious terminology on its China-based Internet service. . ..
Facebook has partnered with gay rights advocates to halt content on its social networking site deemed to be “anti-homosexual,” and it is participating in gay-awareness programs, all of which suggest that Christian content critical of homosexuality, same-sex marriage, or similar practices will be at risk of censorship.
Twitter was once characterized by its general counsel as 'the free speech wing of the free speech party.' But now, it has moved from free speech champion to selective censor. Twitter, Facebook and Google have an astonishing, alarming degree of control over what information we can see or share, whether we're a media outlet or a regular user. Increasingly, we see internet content being governed by the arbitrary, inconsistent, and kneejerk rulings of a tiny group of large companies.
In her September 24, 2015 Washington Post article, “The United Nations has a radical, dangerous vision for the future of the Web,” Caitlin Dewey wrote,
The United Nations Broadband Commission for Digital Development proposes radical, proactive policy changes for both governments and social networks, effectively projecting a whole new vision for how the Internet could work.
Under U.S. law—the law that, not coincidentally, was used to govern most of the world’s largest online platforms—intermediaries such as Twitter and Facebook generally can’t be held responsible for what people do on them. But the United Nations proposes both that social networks proactively police every profile and post, and that government agencies only “license” those who agree to do so.
The United Nations believes that online platforms should be: generally responsible for the actions of their users and specifically responsible for making sure those people aren’t harassers and politically incorrect.
The implications are huge: It’s an attempt to transform the Web from a libertarian free-for-all to some kind of enforced social engineer and regulator.
I ask the question again: How far away from experiencing a total shut down of Christian speech and writings are we?
BREAKING NEWS, only just yesterday!
The socialist Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has announced plans to build a Silicon Valley command center aimed at combating online hate.
All the same globalist billionaires’ names keep popping up with regard to these politically correct safeguard organizations. The Omidyar Network, which is the nonprofit for liberal billionaire eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, who funds the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) hosted by the Poynter Institute for Media Studies.
IFCN has partnered with Facebook to help determine whether certain stories should be flagged as “disputed.” Poynter’s IFCN is also funded by Soros’ Open Society Foundations, as well as by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Google, and the National Endowment for Democracy.
It is very interesting who is behind all this, isn’t it? It’s the same globalist, de-populate-the-Earth squad!
I have only pointed out here that the trend is building toward a famine of the word of God. This powerfully organized censorship movement has the prince of the power of the air behind it. Nevertheless, it is God who ultimately sends this famine as a punishment for not worshipping Him, forsaking His words of Truth, and neglecting to live His way of life.
Amos 8:11-12 "Behold, the days are coming," says the Lord God, "That I will send a famine on the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord. They shall wander from sea to sea, and from north to east; they shall run to and fro, seeking the word of the Lord, but shall not find it.
It is such a tragedy to have plenty of "religion" as we still have today, but less and less true Word from the Lord! That means no light in the darkness, no spiritual nourishment to live by, no direction for making decisions, no protection from the lies of the Enemy. The apostle Paul warns us, “From such turn away!”
People have already begun to stagger like drunks from place to place, going to and fro, hoping to find spiritual sustenance for their hearts and minds. “Always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.”
Nevertheless, Jesus Christ promises us:
Matthew 7:7-8 "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened."
If we do this, we will never suffer from a famine of hearing the word of God.
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