Social Media's Rigged Algorithms

From my primary "I Protest" Substack (May 2023)

The frustration from being shadow banned comes out sometimes, as it did in this post from almost three years ago. There’s no effective way of tooting your own horn. That’s why those with the financial wherewithal to do so hire publicists and marketing specialists. Most of us don’t have a budget for that. Here on Substack, the problem with restacks has grown more noticeable. People have told me that they tried to restack a post, but weren’t allowed to. That sounds like shadow banning. My audience has grown substantially on Substack since I wrote this, but the restacks still lag behind. I know that you can buy followers on X and Instagram, and subscribers on YouTube. I’d feel dishonest doing that, even if I could afford it. So excuse the infomercial here. A viable alternative media must continue to grow, and we all depend exclusively on our fully awake audience base for support.

I mentioned Dustin Nemos here. He has been on my podcast again, but his whole perspective has changed dramatically. He is now focused on Jewish disproportionate power. He and I, and many others in the alt media, now have to worry about being “cancelled” by the Zionists who have taken over the political right, and want to ban “hate speech.” Which amounts to anything that offends them. It’s blatantly obvious that neither the Left or the Right supports the First Amendment. I’m one of the few civil libertarians left. I’m a free speech purist. Note: I now have ten published books that can be rated and reviewed.

This post is not exclusively about me, but it is based upon my own experiences. Kind of like the old “based on a true story” thing that Hollywood once loved. I am beyond frustrated with social media. Not just for myself, but for the many, many good, awake, valuable contributors in the alternative media.

There are many of us who do podcasts, write books, and blog regularly, who could go much farther than Tucker Carlson did, and eventually draw the same kind of huge audience. But there isn’t a single television network that’s going to give any of us that kind of platform. They know that, even as dumbed-down as most Americans are now, the kind of powerful truth we could expose about 9/11 and so many other forbidden topics, would draw people, including lots of “normies” who are asleep but still reachable. And there are plenty of us who could present this kind of information in a humorous and entertaining style.

Since television serves as a public relations outfit for our increasingly deranged “Woke” authorities, and talk radio is dominated by mainstream conservatism, the internet has long been our only hope. And until they banned Alex Jones from the big tech platforms in 2018, the internet was a shockingly free place. Kind of like the old Wild West. YouTube wasn’t censoring the often insightful citizen journalist videos about Sandy Hook, the Boston Bombing, and many other topics. Some alternative channels had a million subscribers. I used to be invited on some of the biggest ones. But after Alex Jones, the dominoes started falling, and other channels were banned.

And it’s not like the alternative voices support each other that enthusiastically. There is unhealthy competition, and distrust, which I’ve commented on before. A lot of them cheered the deplatforming of Alex Jones. Too many suspect others, who are saying similar things, of being disinfo agents, limited hangouts, etc. So we have to depend to a large extent upon those who are listening to and reading us. The Twittersphere especially is like a high school hierarchy. The numbers of followers you have is crucial. It becomes particularly unfair when something artificially limits your ability to grow an audience there, or elsewhere in the social media world.

I was involved in Dustin Nemos’ Stop Bit Burning campaign, to combat this odious online censorship. He was working with one of embattled Kentucky teenager Nicholas Sandmann’s attorneys. I don’t know what happened to the group, or to Dustin. But it’s pretty obvious they weren’t successful. The censorship is growing steadily. I suspect that the snoozing hordes who want to punish the “insurrectionists” and think our greatest threats are Vladimir Putin and “White Supremacy,” would be fully on board for the FCC taking over the internet, and making it as boring and useless as terrestrial radio and network television.

We are akin to cyber Minutemen at this point (okay, Minutepeople), forced almost to use guerilla tactics to combat an all powerful and ruthless enemy. If you still believe in free speech, unlike most present-day Americans, you must demonstrate your support. Listen to my podcast, and the many others like it. Subscribe on Substack to all of the truly independent voices here. Read the books that those like me write, while there are still publishers willing to put their names on them. There are also many valuable self-published works out there.

On a personal level, people ask me all the time, “how can I help?” They want to know how to support my work, beyond buying the books and listening to my radio shows. It’s very gratifying to know that there are people out there who want to help me. I’m not in danger of going homeless any time soon. Most of the world would laugh at my First World problems. America is no longer a First World country. However, some of us can still have First World problems. I live a comfortable life, but my full-time writing and commenting career doesn’t pay that well. I’m living my dream, and doing exactly what I always wanted to do, but I’m getting paid like a McDonald’s employee.

Most of my net worth is in my home. And, of course, that’s entirely subject to the vagaries of our rigged marketplace. If the real estate industry collapses, as it very well could, the net worth of many millions of Americans, including me, would plummet. We wouldn’t have those First World problems to worry about any longer. And if we do indeed go to a digitalized currency, with some kind of corresponding social credit score, then people like me will be literally unable to pay our bills. I have seven books out there (with an eighth about to be released), and countless articles, social media posts, and podcasts, that damn me as a hopeless pariah and Thought Criminal.

It’s very heady stuff to get the accolades I have, from people all over the world. When someone says that you’ve changed their life, how do you respond to that? Whenever I think I’m not making a difference, someone reminds me that I am. It’s sobering to consider that I spent fifteen years, ending around 1989, in a physically demanding job, pulling carts around that weighed as much as a thousand pounds. When you’re a blue collar worker, no one praises your job performance. So it took some time to adjust to hearing people say they were my “fans.” I’m very humbled by that. But I know that sooner or later my fast food income could catch up with me.

And the censoring of the big names in our world, starting with Alex Jones, has trickled down to the likes of me. I am shadow banned on both Facebook and Twitter. I have the maximum number of 5,000 friends on Facebook. When COVID started, I instantly was skeptical, and significantly increased my following with my controversial posts on Facebook. I lost a lot of former supporters, and my own niece cancelled me from her life. But then, at some point, I stopped getting much reaction to my posts. I didn’t know what a “shadow ban” was at first. Boy, have I learned.

Whenever I post anything on Facebook now that is either “controversial,” or just promoting my book, my podcast, or even an upcoming interview, I get only a handful of reactions. However, if I post about my dog, or my birthday, then I can still get hundreds of responses. On Twitter, I am faced with a similarly onerous shadow ban. Several people have told me that they have to keep going back and following my tweets, because they get unfollowed. My followers are suddenly unfollowed by some malevolent force. One person told me that he’s had to follow me at least eight times. Like on Facebook, people will tell me they don’t see what I post for hours, or even days. Elon Musk is supposed to be restoring free speech to Twitter. He certainly talks a good game about it. And the shadow bans are supposed to be a thing of the past. Well, maybe Elon hasn’t gotten to me yet.

Because Substack is just about the only large platform left in the cyber world, which permits free speech, I will have to use it to promote the things I used to be able to promote on Facebook and Twitter. So forgive me if this seems like an infomercial. I am, naturally, interested in promoting my work, but I want that portion of the public that is awake to the corruption and the tyranny, to show support for not just me, but any other voice that is attempting to make a difference by telling the truth. As Orwell said, in times of deceit, that is in and of itself a revolutionary act. We can overwhelm and break the criminal algorithms of Google, YouTube, and the rest of social media. The only power we really have is our advantage in numbers. We need to start using it.

I do take the time and effort to say and write what I know countless people are thinking out there. A lot of people tell me I speak for them. There are many ways those who appreciate my work can help. Every writer depends upon readers. Every talk show needs listeners. I appreciate every reader and every listener. Of course, I welcome every paid subscriber here, and very much appreciate all those that have already opted for that. And I’m grateful for the many free subscribers as well. Support doesn’t have to cost anything. There are a number of ways in which those who want to help can, without spending any money. And if you read a piece on Substack, unless you really don’t like it, please take a second to give it a thumb’s up.

You can go to Amazon and rate my books. You don’t even need to write an actual review- just a click to give my books 5 stars. You can do the same on Goodreads; 5 star rankings, which can offset the “One Star Bandits” that bully so many writers there. Barnes & Noble reviews-those are very, very rare, so would make a difference and certainly be appreciated. Many of you have told me how you’ve loaned your copies of my books to others, or bought copies for them; I can’t thank you enough for that. Word of mouth is a tried and true method, so just mentioning my work is helpful. If you call in to radio shows, perhaps you could fit a quick mention of my name and work in there.

Recommending my books to your local library, and your alma mater’s college library is a great way of extending readership. You don’t even have to go to the library- you can do it online. Every purchase by a library counts as a sale, so it’s just as good as you buying it yourself. And it will cost you nothing. Plus you’ll be supporting the public library system, one of the few useful elements of government that remain in America 2.0. And if you’re feeling extra energetic, some libraries don’t require a library card number to recommend a book to their collection. So you could recommend them online to other big library systems.

Someone set up a Wikipedia page for The Unreals, my first and probably least known book. But there isn’t a page for me as an individual, or my other better known works, including Hidden History. If someone were inspired to create my Wikipedia page, that would be wonderful. I am asked a lot about my Wikipedia page, and it’s a bit embarrassing to reveal I don’t have one. There are plenty of people who aren’t any more known to the public than I am, who do have a Wikipedia page. It would take some work I imagine, but again it wouldn’t cost anything. I don’t think I can create one myself. At this point I don’t think it’s immodest to suggest that I should have one.

You can follow me on Twitter at https://twitter.com/DonJeffries If enough people follow at one time, it should override whatever diabolical algorithm is involved in stopping my followers from growing past a certain number. If you aren’t seeing my tweets, let me know. If you do see them, please like and comment. I don’t tweet that much, because it’s depressing to watch the shadow ban hold down the response. My YouTube channel has some interesting archives from my “I Protest” shows, including interviews with people like John McAfee and Ron Paul. You can give them a thumb’s up. And a nice comment if you’re feeling especially generous.

People have been kind enough to contribute to me via PayPal, under my email address, authorjeffries@gmail.com. Some names weren’t familiar to me, and I couldn’t find a way to thank them on PayPal. I know that money is precious these days, so I am indebted to all of you who have contributed to my work financially. If you have a product or service to sell, you can advertise it on my “I Protest” podcast. And while I get lots of likes and comments on Substack, and my subscribers are steadily increasing, I get comparatively few “restacks,” or reposts to another Substack account. It just takes another click. This would be especially helpful from those who have a large Substack subscriber base.

Even though my books, especially Hidden History (which sold twice as many copies as Woody Allen’s book with the same publisher), have done better than I could ever have expected, the royalty rates are really small. Writers have to sell a lot of books to make any real money. If Hidden History had been published 40-50 years ago, it would have sold half a million copies easily. There are just a lot fewer book readers now. I’ve been lucky- I think the average book sells around 500 copies. All of mine have done significantly better than that, but the nature of the publishing field, like the entertainment industry, is to pay the creator of a product a fraction of what the executives and producers make off of it.

As Eve Plumb of The Brady Bunch told me, “Artists are the only people who are expected to be grateful for being paid.” Comedian and activist Dick Gregory said almost the same thing. I don’t pretend to be an artist, but I do create product. I hate asking for help. I’m not good at this. But I don’t think I’m being unreasonable in talking about support that costs nothing. I should have way more Twitter followers than I have. As noted, they limit mine, delete them, unfriend people, etc., as part of my shadow ban. I should have a Wikipedia page. We can shatter their algorithms. It doesn’t take much, just in most cases a small amount of time.

Forgive me for sounding like a cyber beggar. I live in a nice house, in one of those wonderful suburban neighborhoods they hate and are trying to get rid of. I want for nothing. I am now collecting Social Security, which is my largest source of income. I wouldn’t be surprised if it went bankrupt at any given moment. My situation is as precarious as it is for most retirees. Writing and talking have become my means of making a living. It becomes more difficult when those who control all the big platforms keep voices like mine muted. It isn’t remotely a level playing field. The “marketplace of ideas” is as rigged as the rest of the marketplace.

This is not just a personal request. I’m also asking for all the many others who share my concerns about the horrific direction this country is headed in, and have the courage or the foolishness, depending upon your perspective, to speak out against it. Like anyone who is writing and talking on the internet, I’d like my platform to grow. I think I contribute a unique perspective. If you’re reading this, you’re already a valued supporter of my work. There is no way of talking about this on social media, because of the shadow ban. So I’m just responding here, the only place I can, to all of the people who have asked me what they can do. Now you know.