Wow: Crossfit, Inc. Ends Use of FaceBook, Stating that FaceBook's Heavy-Handed Censorship Dictates That It Is No Longer Fit to Serve as a Marketplace of Ideas

I've knocked Crossfit before (chiefly because guys like Elgintensity told me to) but man, am I loving them today.

CROSSFIT, INC. SUSPENDS USE OF FACEBOOK AND ASSOCIATED PROPERTIES

CrossFit is a contrarian physiological and nutrition prescription for improving fitness and health. It is contrarian because prevailing views of fitness, health, and nutrition are wrong and have unleashed a tsunami of chronic disease upon our friends, family, and communities. The voluntary CrossFit community of 15,000 affiliates and millions of individual adherents stands steadfastly and often alone against an unholy alliance of academia, government, and multinational food, beverage, and pharmaceutical companies.

CrossFit, Inc. defends relentlessly the right of its affiliates, trainers, and athletes to practice CrossFit, build voluntary CrossFit associations and businesses, and speak openly and freely about the ideas and principles that animate our views of exercise, nutrition, and health. This website--and, until recently, CrossFit's Facebook and Instagram accounts--has long catalogued CrossFit's tireless defense of its community against overreaching governments, malicious competitors, and corrupt academic organizations.

Recently, Facebook deleted without warning or explanation the Banting7DayMealPlan user group. The group has 1.65 million users who post testimonials and other information regarding the efficacy of a low-carbohydrate, high-fat diet. While the site has subsequently been reinstated (also without warning or explanation), Facebook's action should give any serious person reason to pause, especially those of us engaged in activities contrary to prevailing opinion.

Facebook and its properties host and oversee a significant share of the marketplace of public thought. To millions of individuals and communities across the world, Facebook and its properties remain the platforms where ideas and information are exchanged. Facebook thus serves as a de facto authority over the public square, arbitrating a worldwide exchange of information as well as overseeing the security of the individuals and communities who entrust their ideas, work, and private data to this platform. This mandates a certain responsibility and assurance of good faith, transparency, and due process.

CrossFit, Inc., as a voluntary user of and contributor to this marketplace, can and must remove itself from this particular manifestation of the public square when it becomes clear that such responsibilities are betrayed or reneged upon to the detriment of our community. Common decency demands that we do so, as do our convictions regarding fitness, health, and nutrition, which sit at the heart of CrossFit's identity and prescription. To this end, all activity on CrossFit, Inc.'s Facebook and Instagram accounts was suspended as of May 22, 2019, as CrossFit investigates the circumstances pertaining to Faceboo'’s deletion of the Banting7DayMealPlan and other well-known public complaints about the social-media company that may adversely impact the security and privacy of our global CrossFit community.

These publicly sourced complaints include but are not limited to the following:

1. Facebook collects and aggregates user information and shares it with state and federal authorities, as well as security organizations from other countries.

2. Facebook collaborates with government security agencies on massive citizen surveillance programs such as PRISM.

3. Facebook censors and removes user accounts based on unknown criteria and at the request of third parties including government and foreign government agencies.

4. Facebook collects, aggregates, and sells user information as a matter of business. Its business model allows governments and businesses alike to use its algorithmically conjured advertising categories as sophisticated data-mining and surveillance tools.

5. Facebook's news feeds are censored and crafted to reflect the political leanings of Facebook's utopian socialists while remaining vulnerable to misinformation campaigns designed to stir up violence and prejudice.

6. Facebook, as a matter of business and principle, has weak intellectual property protections and is slow to close down IP theft accounts.

7. Facebook has poor security protocols and has been subject to the largest security breaches of user data in history.

And finally,

8. Facebook is acting in the service of food and beverage industry interests by deleting the accounts of communities that have identified the corrupted nutritional science responsible for unchecked global chronic disease. In this, it follows the practices of Wikipedia and other private platforms that host public content but retain the ability to remove or silence--without the opportunity for real debate or appeal--information and perspectives outside a narrow scope of belief or thought. In this case, the approved perspective has resulted in the deaths of millions through preventable diseases. Facebook is thus complicit in the global chronic disease crisis.

For these reasons, CrossFit, Inc. has placed Facebook and its associated properties under review and will no longer support or use Facebook's services until further notice.

What they're getting at at the end there is that the US government's official dietary advice is completely wrong, and has been for fifty fucking years, causing millions of people to die earlier and live unhealthier lives, but because this completely wrong information is "official" that means all dissent is, per FaceBook, either "misinformation" or conspiracy theory -- and that's probably why FaceBook banned this "Banting" diet group.

And a note on that: A man named Banting was one of the earlier people to publish a low-carb diet plan -- back in the 1800s. It worked then, it works now. The "new" and "untested" low carb/LCHF/Keto/Atkins diet is actually far older than the supposed tried-and-true government diet plan.

And by the way -- how are the official US dietary recommendations working out? Oh, that's right, obesity and diabetes rates have soared since they've been adopted by the public.

So FaceBook is doing with the nutrition debate what it does in the political debate: It decides there is one (1) correct view of an issue, that view being pushed by the same clatch of left-leaning bureaucrats who decide everything, and then bans anyone who proposes any other view.

I've said this before, but if you read Gary Taubes on how the US government "science" on nutrition came to be, it's amazing: The fat-is-bad hypothesis became government-approved "fact" the same way that global warming did. Literally -- there was no actual scientific evidence backing the fat-is-bad hypothesis, so the ringleader pushing the theory, Ansel Keyes, created his own conference, sent out invitations to doctors he knew agreed with him, and then voted that the fat-is-bad hypothesis was true.

They created a "consensus," in other words, and then, having no actual evidence to back their theory, claimed that a "consensus" was just as good as evidence. Even better, maybe!

And now FaceBook has decided that the existence of a "consensus" is enough reason to squelch people's contrary opinions.

All in the name of "safety" and "truth," you understand.

So that's the end of all debate, all critique, all challenge: A corporate monopoly run by a weirdo nerd-weakling-on-a-power-trip will decide what the True Holy Book of Science and Right-Think says, and chase all the infidels into the shadows forever.

Fuck. This. Shit.

Finally, someone with some heft and cachet is standing up to FaceBook.

Today I can say to CrossFit, Inc.: Bro, today, you definitely lift.

BTW: This issue is important to CrossFit because while CrossFit has no official diet, I think about half of crossfitters are paleo (which is a cousin of keto), and then another quarter are keto.

Are the rest vegans? Maybe the rest are vegans. I don't know.

But CrossFitters are generally not followers of USDA dietary advice or the food pyramid.

Mandy P. writes...

290 This Facebook thing is actually a really serious concern in the low carb and keto community. There are several prominent figures that have had their Wikipedia pages removed, and the belief is that it's due to vegan propagandists and activists. Jimmy Moore and Doctor Noakes are two really frequent targets.

Yes, I thought of that too -- it's the vegans flagging these people for recommending high amounts of animal protein and fat.

And what I thought was: Vegans are the sort of leftwing community Facebook would immediately obey, and start banning people based on their shrieks.

Do you think someone could get vegans banned for the various lies they propagate?

Nope!

posted by Ace of Spades at 12:57 PM

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