{"id":10791,"date":"2017-11-04T09:38:31","date_gmt":"2017-11-04T13:38:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/?p=10791"},"modified":"2024-09-11T17:05:24","modified_gmt":"2024-09-11T21:05:24","slug":"the-hill-facebook-farce-shows-congressional-deviousness-demagoguery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2017\/11\/04\/the-hill-facebook-farce-shows-congressional-deviousness-demagoguery\/","title":{"rendered":"The Hill: Facebook Farce Shows Congressional Deviousness & Demagoguery"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Hill, November 4, 2017 \"\"<\/a><\/h2>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n

Facebook farce shows lawmaker deviousness, demagoguery<\/a><\/h1>\n

by James Bovard<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u00a0The 2016 election was the first time in history that goofy advertisements were considered an act of war. The frenzy on Capitol Hill over a smattering of Russian advertisements would be comical except that most of the American media has jumped on the hysteria bandwagon. The latest clamor is a stark warning to anyone who presumes that politicians are natural friends of freedom of speech.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n

Russian political advertisements amounted to only .004 percent of the total content that Facebook<\/a> users saw last year in the United States. Russian ads on Facebook were clumsy and schizophrenic, hitting multiple sides of issues, and were often laughably simplistic (such as the \u201cJesus Punches Hillary\u201d ad shown here).<\/p>\n

Rep. <\/a>Andre Carson<\/a> (D-Ind.) railed that \u201ca dictator like Vladimir Putin abused flaws in our social media platforms to inject the worst kind of identity politics into the voting decisions of at least 100 million Americans.\u201d This presumes that Russian ads had a mysterious power to zap the minds of Facebook users who perhaps had zero resistance after viewing too many cat videos. But my experience running a few ads on Facebook for one of my books found that it was a worse investment than buying used lottery tickets from a wino on the street corner.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
Axios reporter Sara Fischer observed<\/a>, \u201cIn the political advertising world, you would need to serve at least 7-10 viewable impressions to a person over a short window, two-four weeks, to even begin driving intent or action.”No one has proven that Russian ads on Facebook or Twitter had any significant impact \u2014 especially in swing states such as Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Regardless, Sen. Dianne Feinstein<\/a><\/span> (D-Calif.) berated tech company officials<\/a>: \u201cYou bear this responsibility. You\u2019ve created these platforms and now they\u2019re being misused. And you have to be the ones to do something about it. Or we will.\u201d<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Alternet reporter Max Blumenthal observed<\/a> that \u201cthe liberal Democrats in #TechHearings are most outspoken opponents of press freedom & supporters of media censorship.\u201d The lambasting of social media companies is a reminder that nothing is so fleeting as political gratitude. Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, in an email to Clinton campaign chief John Podesta, declared that she wanted “HRC to win badly. I am still here to help as I can.” (Thanks, Wikileaks<\/a>!)<\/p>\n

Twitter did its best to suppress tweets about leaked Clinton campaign emails. After identifying 2 percent of tweets with a #DNCLeak hashtag as \u201cpotentially Russian-linked accounts,\u201d Twitter admitted to suppressing almost half of all tweets<\/a> with that hashtag, making them invisible to search engines. Activists were confounded last Fall when extremely popular tweets on leaked emails rarely showed up as \u201ctrending.\u201d<\/p>\n

To highlight the Russian peril, Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) and Sen. Amy Klobuchar<\/a><\/span> (D- Minn.) created a bogus Facebook group named \u201cAmericans for Disclosure Solution\u201d<\/a> to purportedly show how easy it was to spread fake news. But any Russian contribution to fake news was infinitesimal last year compared to the Trump and Clinton campaigns\u2019 vast expenditures to bombard Americans with deceitful advertisements. And when it comes to the damage from fake news, nothing compares to the carnage from the Bush administration\u2019s false claims before invading Iraq or the Obama administration\u2019s deluded forecasts about the happy results of bombing Libya. \u00a0Governments often define \u201cfake news\u201d as anything that debunks official falsehoods.<\/p>\n

Shamelessness was bountiful this week. Sen. Ben Cardin<\/a><\/span> (D-Md.), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, declared: \u201cWhen you use cyber in an affirmative way to compromise our democratic, free election system, that\u2019s an attack against America. It\u2019s an act of war<\/a>.\u201d Ironically, Cardin did his saber rattling in a spiel at the National Democratic Institute \u2014 a Washington organization heavily financed by the federal National Endowment Democracy, which has been caught interfering or alleged to be interfering in elections in France, Panama<\/a>, Costa Rica<\/a>, Ukraine<\/a>, Russia<\/a>, Czechoslovakia<\/a>, Poland<\/a>, Haiti<\/a>\u00a0and many other nations.<\/p>\n

Facebook\u2019s piety helps make it a juicy political target. Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg pledged in September to \u201cto ensure our community<\/a> is a platform for all ideas and force for good in democracy.\u201d But Facebook is already suppressing plenty of postings in the United States; I reported last week in USA Today<\/a> on my own experience being zapped by Facebook after seeking to post a photo of a U.S. government atrocity.<\/p>\n

In much of the world, Facebook permits government officials to suppress practically any information they please. Facebook instructs its employees that \u201cwe will not censor content unless a nation has demonstrated the political will to enforce its censorship laws<\/a>.\u201d But when governments demand crackdowns, Facebook has obliged in nations ranging from in Turkey, India<\/a>, Pakistan<\/a>, Morocco<\/a>, and Israel<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Daily Show host Trevor Noah sneered<\/a> on Thursday that Facebook would have permitted Hitler to buy social media ads. This is ironic since critics may be seeking a Germanification of Facebook here. German police recently responded to offensive social media postings by conducting dozens of high-profile \u201chome searches and interrogations<\/a>.\u201d Facebook sought to placate the German government by deleting 15,000 posts a month <\/a>but the government is threatening a $50+ million fine unless Facebook censors far more comments. Judith Bergman of the Gatestone Institute<\/a> warned: “When employees of social media companies are appointed as the state’s private thought police … free speech becomes nothing more than a fairy tale.”<\/p>\n

Actually, this may be the secret wish of some members of Congress. Unfortunately, many Americans would cheer federal muzzling. Almost half of millennials supported restricting freedom of speech on social media, according to a recent survey<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Congressional threats have probably already done long-term damage to corporate spines. It would be naive to expect Facebook, Twitter, or other social media companies to take heroic stands in favor of free speech. But it would be even more naive to expect anything good to result from permitting politicians to decimate freedom in the name of democracy.<\/p>\n

James Bovard is <\/em>a USA Today columnist<\/em><\/a> and the author of 10 books, including \u201c<\/em>Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty<\/em><\/a>\u201d (St. Martin\u2019s Press, 1994).<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Hill, November 4, 2017   Facebook farce shows lawmaker deviousness, demagoguery by James Bovard \u00a0The 2016 election was the first time in history that goofy advertisements were considered an act of war. The frenzy on Capitol Hill over a smattering of Russian advertisements would be comical except that most of the American media has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1181,1183,15,72,1182,1173,36,578,923,734],"class_list":["post-10791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-2016-election","tag-ben-cardin","tag-congress","tag-demagoguery","tag-dianne-feinstein","tag-facebook","tag-iraq","tag-national-endowment-for-democracy","tag-russia","tag-twitter"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Hill: Facebook Farce Shows Congressional Deviousness & Demagoguery - James Bovard<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2017\/11\/04\/the-hill-facebook-farce-shows-congressional-deviousness-demagoguery\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Hill: Facebook Farce Shows Congressional Deviousness & Demagoguery - James Bovard\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Hill, November 4, 2017   Facebook farce shows lawmaker deviousness, demagoguery by James Bovard \u00a0The 2016 election was the first time in history that goofy advertisements were considered an act of war. The frenzy on Capitol Hill over a smattering of Russian advertisements would be comical except that most of the American media has […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2017\/11\/04\/the-hill-facebook-farce-shows-congressional-deviousness-demagoguery\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"James Bovard\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/jim.bovard\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-11-04T13:38:31+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-09-11T21:05:24+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/thehill-logo-big.png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jim\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@jimbovard\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Jim\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2017\\\/11\\\/04\\\/the-hill-facebook-farce-shows-congressional-deviousness-demagoguery\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2017\\\/11\\\/04\\\/the-hill-facebook-farce-shows-congressional-deviousness-demagoguery\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Jim\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/79550830ad81c14be529a2c37469974f\"},\"headline\":\"The Hill: Facebook Farce Shows Congressional Deviousness & Demagoguery\",\"datePublished\":\"2017-11-04T13:38:31+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-09-11T21:05:24+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2017\\\/11\\\/04\\\/the-hill-facebook-farce-shows-congressional-deviousness-demagoguery\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":1026,\"commentCount\":2,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2017\\\/11\\\/04\\\/the-hill-facebook-farce-shows-congressional-deviousness-demagoguery\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"http:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2017\\\/11\\\/thehill-logo-big.png\",\"keywords\":[\"2016 election\",\"Ben Cardin\",\"Congress\",\"demagoguery\",\"Dianne Feinstein\",\"Facebook\",\"Iraq\",\"National Endowment for Democracy\",\"Russia\",\"Twitter\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2017\\\/11\\\/04\\\/the-hill-facebook-farce-shows-congressional-deviousness-demagoguery\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2017\\\/11\\\/04\\\/the-hill-facebook-farce-shows-congressional-deviousness-demagoguery\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2017\\\/11\\\/04\\\/the-hill-facebook-farce-shows-congressional-deviousness-demagoguery\\\/\",\"name\":\"The Hill: Facebook Farce Shows Congressional Deviousness & Demagoguery - James Bovard\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2017\\\/11\\\/04\\\/the-hill-facebook-farce-shows-congressional-deviousness-demagoguery\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2017\\\/11\\\/04\\\/the-hill-facebook-farce-shows-congressional-deviousness-demagoguery\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"http:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2017\\\/11\\\/thehill-logo-big.png\",\"datePublished\":\"2017-11-04T13:38:31+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-09-11T21:05:24+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/79550830ad81c14be529a2c37469974f\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2017\\\/11\\\/04\\\/the-hill-facebook-farce-shows-congressional-deviousness-demagoguery\\\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2017\\\/11\\\/04\\\/the-hill-facebook-farce-shows-congressional-deviousness-demagoguery\\\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2017\\\/11\\\/04\\\/the-hill-facebook-farce-shows-congressional-deviousness-demagoguery\\\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"http:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2017\\\/11\\\/thehill-logo-big.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"http:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2017\\\/11\\\/thehill-logo-big.png\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2017\\\/11\\\/04\\\/the-hill-facebook-farce-shows-congressional-deviousness-demagoguery\\\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The Hill: Facebook Farce Shows Congressional Deviousness & Demagoguery\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/\",\"name\":\"James Bovard\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/79550830ad81c14be529a2c37469974f\",\"name\":\"Jim\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/d95466cfd0934e38803c5035629df727ae4ec1f3f96c6883c05b5c52e2044505?s=96&d=mm&r=r\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/d95466cfd0934e38803c5035629df727ae4ec1f3f96c6883c05b5c52e2044505?s=96&d=mm&r=r\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/d95466cfd0934e38803c5035629df727ae4ec1f3f96c6883c05b5c52e2044505?s=96&d=mm&r=r\",\"caption\":\"Jim\"},\"description\":\"Bovard's homepage is at http:\\\/\\\/www.jimbovard.com He can be contacted at jim@jimbovard.com James Bovard is the author of ten books. The Wall Street Journal called Bovard \\\"the roving inspector general of the modern state\\\" and Washington Post columnist George Will called him a \\\"one-man truth squad.\\\" His 1994 book, Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty, received the Free Press Association\u2019s Mencken Award as Book of the Year. His Terrorism & Tyranny won the Lysander Spooner \\\"Best Book on Liberty in 2003\\\" award. He received the Thomas Szasz Award for Civil Liberties work, awarded by the Center for Independent Thought and the Freedom Fund Award from the Firearms Civil Rights Defense Fund of the National Rifle Association. Bovard\u2019s writings have been publicly denounced by FBI director Louis Freeh, the Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, the Postmaster General, and the chiefs of the U.S. International Trade Commission, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as well as by many congressmen and other malcontents.\",\"sameAs\":[\"http:\\\/\\\/www.jimbovard.com\",\"https:\\\/\\\/www.facebook.com\\\/jim.bovard\",\"https:\\\/\\\/x.com\\\/jimbovard\"],\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/author\\\/admin\\\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Hill: Facebook Farce Shows Congressional Deviousness & Demagoguery - James Bovard","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2017\/11\/04\/the-hill-facebook-farce-shows-congressional-deviousness-demagoguery\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Hill: Facebook Farce Shows Congressional Deviousness & Demagoguery - James Bovard","og_description":"The Hill, November 4, 2017   Facebook farce shows lawmaker deviousness, demagoguery by James Bovard \u00a0The 2016 election was the first time in history that goofy advertisements were considered an act of war. The frenzy on Capitol Hill over a smattering of Russian advertisements would be comical except that most of the American media has […]","og_url":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2017\/11\/04\/the-hill-facebook-farce-shows-congressional-deviousness-demagoguery\/","og_site_name":"James Bovard","article_author":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/jim.bovard","article_published_time":"2017-11-04T13:38:31+00:00","article_modified_time":"2024-09-11T21:05:24+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/thehill-logo-big.png","type":"","width":"","height":""}],"author":"Jim","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@jimbovard","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Jim","Est. reading time":"5 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2017\/11\/04\/the-hill-facebook-farce-shows-congressional-deviousness-demagoguery\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2017\/11\/04\/the-hill-facebook-farce-shows-congressional-deviousness-demagoguery\/"},"author":{"name":"Jim","@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/79550830ad81c14be529a2c37469974f"},"headline":"The Hill: Facebook Farce Shows Congressional Deviousness & Demagoguery","datePublished":"2017-11-04T13:38:31+00:00","dateModified":"2024-09-11T21:05:24+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2017\/11\/04\/the-hill-facebook-farce-shows-congressional-deviousness-demagoguery\/"},"wordCount":1026,"commentCount":2,"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2017\/11\/04\/the-hill-facebook-farce-shows-congressional-deviousness-demagoguery\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/thehill-logo-big.png","keywords":["2016 election","Ben Cardin","Congress","demagoguery","Dianne Feinstein","Facebook","Iraq","National Endowment for Democracy","Russia","Twitter"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2017\/11\/04\/the-hill-facebook-farce-shows-congressional-deviousness-demagoguery\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2017\/11\/04\/the-hill-facebook-farce-shows-congressional-deviousness-demagoguery\/","url":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2017\/11\/04\/the-hill-facebook-farce-shows-congressional-deviousness-demagoguery\/","name":"The Hill: Facebook Farce Shows Congressional Deviousness & Demagoguery - James Bovard","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2017\/11\/04\/the-hill-facebook-farce-shows-congressional-deviousness-demagoguery\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2017\/11\/04\/the-hill-facebook-farce-shows-congressional-deviousness-demagoguery\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/thehill-logo-big.png","datePublished":"2017-11-04T13:38:31+00:00","dateModified":"2024-09-11T21:05:24+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/79550830ad81c14be529a2c37469974f"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2017\/11\/04\/the-hill-facebook-farce-shows-congressional-deviousness-demagoguery\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2017\/11\/04\/the-hill-facebook-farce-shows-congressional-deviousness-demagoguery\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2017\/11\/04\/the-hill-facebook-farce-shows-congressional-deviousness-demagoguery\/#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/thehill-logo-big.png","contentUrl":"http:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/thehill-logo-big.png"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2017\/11\/04\/the-hill-facebook-farce-shows-congressional-deviousness-demagoguery\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Hill: Facebook Farce Shows Congressional Deviousness & Demagoguery"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/","name":"James Bovard","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/79550830ad81c14be529a2c37469974f","name":"Jim","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/d95466cfd0934e38803c5035629df727ae4ec1f3f96c6883c05b5c52e2044505?s=96&d=mm&r=r","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/d95466cfd0934e38803c5035629df727ae4ec1f3f96c6883c05b5c52e2044505?s=96&d=mm&r=r","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/d95466cfd0934e38803c5035629df727ae4ec1f3f96c6883c05b5c52e2044505?s=96&d=mm&r=r","caption":"Jim"},"description":"Bovard's homepage is at http:\/\/www.jimbovard.com He can be contacted at jim@jimbovard.com James Bovard is the author of ten books. The Wall Street Journal called Bovard \"the roving inspector general of the modern state\" and Washington Post columnist George Will called him a \"one-man truth squad.\" His 1994 book, Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty, received the Free Press Association\u2019s Mencken Award as Book of the Year. His Terrorism & Tyranny won the Lysander Spooner \"Best Book on Liberty in 2003\" award. He received the Thomas Szasz Award for Civil Liberties work, awarded by the Center for Independent Thought and the Freedom Fund Award from the Firearms Civil Rights Defense Fund of the National Rifle Association. Bovard\u2019s writings have been publicly denounced by FBI director Louis Freeh, the Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, the Postmaster General, and the chiefs of the U.S. International Trade Commission, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as well as by many congressmen and other malcontents.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.jimbovard.com","https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/jim.bovard","https:\/\/x.com\/jimbovard"],"url":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/author\/admin\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10791"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10791\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20473,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10791\/revisions\/20473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}