January 9, 2019
By Craig McKee
These are tough times for truth.
YouTube accounts, Facebook pages, and websites are being deleted for no more reason than they deviate from the mainstream construction of reality. Google algorithms now make it much more difficult to find content that offers alternative analysis of political crimes like 9/11 and the war on terror. Whether Google considers a site to be credible and reliable is now determined by how closely its content mimics what mainstream media sites publish. If you challenge what the MSM says about anything, you are, by their definition, “fake news.”
The more courageous a person is and the more risks they are prepared to take to speak unpopular truths, the more they will be attacked and even silenced. “Thought crimes” are being punished under the guise of combating “conspiracy theories” and “hate speech.” The world is upside down. And no, this didn’t just happen in November 2016.
The assault on truth requires supporting lies for it to succeed. Without deceptive propaganda, the clampdown on free speech would have to be justified on its own merits. And I still have enough faith in human beings that I don’t believe they would stand for it unless they were being tricked. But that’s what propaganda is, isn’t it?
Back in August of 2018 – in the wake of Alex Jones having his pages and accounts suspended by a number of social media platforms – the “content managers” at WordPress started deleting websites. This flew in the face of their previous claims to be champions of free speech. The sites deleted include those operated by 9/11 truthers like Ken Doc and Scott Creighton (who created the American Everyman site, formerly found under the URL willyloman.wordpress.com). Also deleted was the rethink911.org site, created by Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth.
When this happened, I knew my own site could be next. I took steps to backup all my articles and all the comments that went with them. Then nothing happened. I wondered if I might have been spared from the purge. But I was just living on borrowed time. The end of the first phase of this blog’s life came on Oct. 31, 2018 when I received an email from WordPress labelled “Abuse reports.” (Was someone complaining to WordPress that they were being “abused” by me? I wonder.)
I discussed Internet censorship and what happened to my site in this interview with Andy Steele on 9/11 Free Fall. You can listen here.
Because I was aware of what had happened to other sites, I knew immediately what this message meant. The body of the email confirmed this. I was told that my blog no longer “aligns” with their terms of service and user guidelines and that my site had been “suspended and would not be returned.” Given that to “suspend” means to “temporarily prevent from continuing or being in force or effect,” I’m not sure how WordPress can suspend my blog permanently. But they did.
They gave me a short time to export my data without saying how long a short time would be. Two weeks? Two hours? I took no chances.
WordPress very generously offered to help me migrate my data to a new site. For the low price of $169, they would provide me with the help of one of their “happiness engineers.” I can only imagine what George Carlin would have had to say about this twisted nod to Orwell. As I was not in the best of moods after seeing eight years and 222 posts go down the drain, the idea of paying one of these grinning bastards to remove my content from their online garbage dumpster – where they had tossed it without the slightest hesitation or compassion – did not appeal to me in the least.
(As I sit here watching Casino for the eighth time, I can’t help but fantasize about a happiness engineer getting whacked and then buried in the desert by Joe Pesci. But then I remind myself that these people are just soldiers for the family, cogs in a corrupt system.)
Important editor’s note: Any resemblance between this fantasy and any actual mob hit is purely coincidental. We at Truth and Shadows wish only the best for happiness engineers everywhere as they diligently work to keep us safe from all that nasty “free speech.”
I was given the opportunity to appeal the decision in the event that I thought an “error” had been made. Of course, I didn’t think it was an error; I knew they did exactly what they wanted to do – or exactly what they had been told to do. But I “appealed” anyway. I had no real hope that this would change anything, but I had to find out how they would justify the claim that I had violated their terms of service.
With the lowest of expectations, I received an answer to my appeal, which just referred me back to the original email. Talk about circular logic. Further attempts to ask for an actual reason that they killed my site have been met with silence. More irony.
So I took another route. With the help of someone who knows much more about this sort of thing that I ever will, the data was migrated to a new site no longer under the control of WordPress. I feel more secure than I did despite this ominous warning at the bottom of the WordPress email: “Please keep in mind that other hosts may have similar policies regarding this type of content.”
This type of content…
From the beginning I was determined that Truth and Shadows would rise again in one form or another. But the process has not been without glitches. For example, the vast majority of the photographs that I had used to accompany my articles did not make the trip. So this means that I will have to re-import each and every missing photo, one at a time. This will take a while, but I will do it. Also, the many links in my articles to other Truth and Shadows articles will have to be replaced. Another big job. But I will do that, too. As long as it takes.
Sorry for the mess, but we just moved in …
The worst thing about losing the site as I did is that every link to one of my articles anywhere on the Internet has been severed. Thousands of links on other websites no longer bring readers to my work. Google searches for “Pentagon” and “9/11” used to bring up my article “How we KNOW an airliner did NOT hit the Pentagon on 9/11” on the first page. Millions of results, and my article was in the top 10. After the algorithm changes you’d be lucky to find the article in the first 10 pages. Now, of course, you won’t find it at all. But I see this as a temporary setback.
According to Alexa, a program that ranks websites according to traffic (not to be confused with the Amazon device that records everything you say in your home), Truth and Shadows was the most visited 9/11 blog (at least among those that I have heard of) – and second among sites that focus mainly on 9/11 behind ae911truth.org. When I entered the Truth Movement the big site was 9/11 Blogger, but Truth and Shadows surpassed that by a considerable margin quite a while back. On one very memorable day, 100,000 people visited the site thanks to what has become the most read Truth and Shadows piece of all time: “Martin Luther King was murdered in hospital: an interview with William Pepper.”
Now, it’s back to square one.
The articles are all there but all the search engine rankings they built up over eight years are gone.
I had thought about creating my own website for at least a couple of years before I actually did in 2010. I assumed at the time that it would cost money to have it designed and activated. I had no idea how to do this myself. At the time I was writing content for a company that did Search Engine Optimization, and I was asked to tutor a client in how to write a business blog. This required me to figure out how to do this before I could explain it to someone else. In doing my research, I found out that there were two blogging platforms that provided ready-to-post templates. And the whole thing was free!
So that is when I created Truth and Shadows, choosing WordPress over the Google-owned Blogger. And that was terrific for more than eight years. But I did not count on just how bad censorship of alternative voices would get. I won’t make that mistake again. And I loudly urge anyone who is considering creating their own blog to skip the free hosting platforms and pay for hosting. This is no guarantee, as WordPress warned, but it gives the creator much more control over their content.
I’m delighted to be able resume speaking out for what I believe in. My passion for exposing the lies in the official story of 9/11 – and many other false flag operations – has not diminished. But just because the site is back up again does not mean there aren’t those who continue to work behind the scenes to undermine what I am trying to do.
But that’s a topic for another day.
The real secrets being kept from all of us are not just bad for “democracy,” they actually lead to misery and death for millions, including those who have the nerve to live in countries that empires want for their own. And those who wield serious power in this world are able to do so because their actions and motives are hidden in the shadows. Truth seekers, and truth speakers, have to do all they can to make it impossible for that to continue.
In the meantime, suck it, WordPress.
Hey Craig…. be inevitable-mere-chance your post comes at the exact-same time that a potentially-wonderful new program hits the market.
I joined yesterday, but the following link is not my afflink. I just know for sure, that your new blog can be very-advantageously placed alongside others on this, the easiest, best-organized blog farm on the ‘Net.
Check it out, and join me if you like it. I bet nobody else has a blog on a topic anything like as interesting as yours 😉
http://crowdpbn.com/special.html
Mike Rose
facebook group NZ 9/11
Thanks, Mike! I’ll check it out.
Hi and thank you for your courage to keep fighting the good fight.
Cheri Aspen.
San Diego 9/11 Truth
WordPress should be sued for the considerable damage they have done to you. I think they stink to high heaven for doing what they did to you and uncounted others. There is no excuse for attempting to silence people wordpress. You guys are scumbags.
Thanks, Adam. I agree 100%.
Had these guys been even remotely honest, they would have given me warning so I could redirect all my links to a new site. But they severed those links without any warning. So I’m starting over.
Thanks for your support.
Strange how after 8yrs, the content suddenly doesn’t comply with standards. I presume the no warning in order to redirect served a purpose as well??
Anyway… I read all your ‘stuff ‘ and have followed this site for years and will continue to do so…
I’m sorry all your hard work was ‘suspended ‘ as you now have the arduous job of retrieving photos, etc.
Good luck and all the best Craig
(From Australia)
Your courage and tenacity are only matched by your powerful critical thinking skills and top-notch writing style. All awe-inspiring! T&S Comeback 2019 just made the future a little brighter. Your blog was #1 for good reason. I’m taking your blog’s return as being the time for me to get off my duff and up my contribution to the 911 Truth movement. Thanks for doing what you do – rock steady bro!!!
Thanks so much, Brad! I feel I’m not worthy of all that praise but I’ll take it anyway! What happened has also given me a push to do better and to focus my efforts more sharply. The truth is under assault from all sides and we have to fight back.
Congrats on getting back up and going!
Thanks, Brian! Your encouragement has always been great.
Great to see you back Craig!
Thanks, Peter! This will help keep me off the streets.
WordPress really are the most unspeakable scumbags to have done this dear Craig!
I wish you every success as you begin again. So look forward to being access your material once again.
Take your banishment as a badge of honour!
They only attack the good stuff!!!
And the Grand Jury is now coming at long last!
I think we will all be amazed by the amount of evil that will be revealed in 2019!!!
So many big names are about to go down in flames, and not a moment too soon!
Chris
Today’s national surveillance-security states, as with their predecessors going back to the earliest empires, such as the Roman, are heavily engaged in identifying ideas, movements, activities, information and uncorrupted leaders that threaten the status quo of each.
Truth (I know that’s a generalization noun, itself susceptible to subversion) always becomes identified by empires as an enemy, probably the most dangerous one.
The American Empire, although suffering early death tremors, remains the dominant one on Earth. It employs more spies and ways of spying than any other. It invented the Internet, that evolved to become a powerful surveillance tool. As such, the more “democratic” and “free” the internet became, the more there was for the digital spooks of the American Empire to harvest.
It’s always been just a matter of time until the value of the Internet to the American Empire as a harvest operation would have to be balanced against the dangers to the Empire of unfettered free speech. Especially any revelations about some of the Empire’s darkest secrets, such as the truth about the 9/11 false flag operation and in particular the Pentagon side of that grotesque deception.
It appears the shutdown side of the U.S. security state is all too firmly underway. Happening in China too, and some other countries to lesser extents.
The arbitrary removal by WordPress of Truth and Shadows brings this close to home for me and others. The bald manner of it is a message in itself, but also shows that the shadowy players of the Empire, and therefore those at the top, are worried.
In 1995 I attended a conference of truth seekers in Greece that was entitled “A New Dark Ages?” Seems it was a bit ahead of its time.
Welcome back, Craig!
Thanks, Ken!
I was worried when I saw your site had been deleted, so welcome back and best wishes for the future.
Thanks, Dave. I’m counting on more great comments from you to keep things interesting.
So glad to see you back, Craig. I was wondering what happened to your site but I was able to find you on Twitter where I learned the news. Unbelievable! They are running scared. Btw, I suggest you provide your social media links somewhere on your home page so we can find you in case something else happens on your blog.
One minor correction: you dated your new post 2018;-)
Finally, what CMS do you use for your new blog?
Great comeback, Craig. Keep up the excellent work.
Thanks, Dennis!
Great news Craig. Congratulations for your devotion and tenancity. Well done!
I appreciate it, Geoff. Thanks for your great contributions to the blog. I look forward to the next one!
Welcome back and thanks for persevering. Let’s make this the year that the truth comes out.
Glad your blog is back up even though I must confess I was not familiar with it previously (saw a tweet today re your above new post about your return).
The WP purge began late night 8/15/18 between midnight & 2am. You already mentioned Scott Creighton’s blog. Here’s a few others WP “suspended” & dumped that same night & in the few weeks thereafter:
__”Fellowship Of The Minds” (main researcher a PhD), online at WP since 2009, 10,000 posts. Back online 2-weeks later with a new host & still slowly repopulating the new blog with all those prior posts! New blog has been hit w/prolonged DDoS attacks. Still on twitter @DrEowyn > has done excellent research over the years re all the “mass shootings,” etc.
__”Saboteur365″ (also a PhD) online at WP only since 2014 but he did a dozen posts per day re the “multiculture wars.” He used Twitter after that but then Twitter banned him, too, after about 3 months. He’s been using Gab.ai ever since with the same @Saboteur365 ID.
__Jay Dyer’s “Jay’s Analysis” WP was also axed though I was not familiar with it.
__”Government Rag” WP blog was also axed.
__Ditto the “Chemtrails Planet” WP blog.
__Ditto the Monica Perez WP blog (she has a popular radio show in Atlanta).
__In 2016 WP banned Professor & PhD James Tracey’s “Memory Hole” blog. He’s been back online awhile but is in the appeals process of his 1st-A lawsuit vs. his prior University for firing him over his truther blog. He’s paid a heavy price (loss of income & w/5 kids!). Also still on twitter @MemoryHoleBlog.
!!&$/@?!!
And, of course, I’m sure you’ve all heard re the constant Twitter bans, Facebook bans, PayPal bans, Amazon bans, & even Patreon purging accounts, etc. And pathetic Tim Cook sticking his nose in the frey, etc. I even heard Firefox had joined the Darkside.
__Amazon banned Michael A. Hoffman’s books (“Revisionist History” site) & Amazon banned that Roosh guy’s books (gender wars).
__Google finally axed James Fetzer’s blogspot, but he’s back online. He along with Dr.Eowyn & Prof. Tracey had published the “Nobody Died at Sandy Hook” book that Amazon banned.
On that note, many felt the WP axings were due to the “behind the scenes” demands of spook+fraudster (((“Lenny Pozner”))), the supposed “father” of the faked-photo-kid “Noah Pozner” whose same photo appeared again later as a kid who died (again!) in a Pakistani school shooting. Many blogs posted that BBC story & photo, noting it was the same photo of the alleged Pozner kid who was supposedly already dead via SandyHook!
Pozner was responsible for getting Tracey’s WP blog axed in 2016, but it wasn’t until the 2018 purges that WP added a new “rule” in its Terms re “photos of minors.” Hence the reason many believe Pozner (& his overlords) have been on the revenge-warpath all along.
If you had ever posted that same kid’s photo, that could *possibly* be why WP axed your blog as well (??)
Let it be known that when School Safety Expert Wolfgang Halbig sued Lenny Pozner re SandyHoax, Pozner refused to show up for his deposition so he lost the case by Default. He hides in the darkness & perpetrates evil against TRUTH from THE SHADOWS!
It truly is “getting hairy” out there (to borrow a phrase from the ’60’s). 😉
Congrats getting back up & running. I’ll add your twitter to my regulars to keep an eye out for new posts.
We are truly in upside down world here. The corporate whore media are liars, social media are anti-social, and it seems every bozo who controls a little slice of the internet has turned into a certified fascist dictator. But I see this all as the end for the bad guys. This is their last ditch feeble effort at stemming the tide. They do not know that the more you try to suppress the truth the stronger it becomes. Now Truth and Shadows will become twice as dangerous as before and for that I am glad.
Looks like I’m a little late to the party. I hadn’t checked your twitter account in a week or so – busy time of year for me.
But now it’s official – today is a good day.
Thanks for all you do, Craig.
Great to have you and T&S back.
Thanks, Hadmatter! Glad to hear from you.
Knew at once what ‘deleted’ meant at WordPress. I feel fortunate to have discovered your site before the axe descended. Thanks for your courage and perseverance!
Much appreciated, Jon!
Glad you’ve risen again from the ashes, Craig, and thanks for sending me the link to this site, since I don’t do much on social media. You might want to delete that wordpress link from the META on the side bar.
Good idea. Thanks, David.
If you haven’t already, you should consider using a web host in Iceland. Iceland has the strongest data privacy and protection laws in the world, and they are not signatories of any of the data sharing agreements that exist (mostly) between Europe, the USA and other countries. Also, I just want to say that WordPress.com is dirty for what they did to you and that anyone who really wants to find your content will find this website.
I read your article “Martin Luther King Survived Shooting, Was Murdered in Hospital: An Interview with William Pepper” (https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-plot-to-kill-martin-luther-king-survived-shooting-was-murdered-in-hospital-an-interview-with-william-pepper/5544005) on GlobalResearch.ca, and at the end of the article there was a statement identifying you and Truth and Shadows as the original source of the article. Of course, the citation gave the link to your now defunct WordPress.com blog, but I *EASILY* found this website by searching for the blog name on Google and looking for a top-level domain name in the results. Your FB page is #1, your Twitter is #2, and this new site is #3. Anyhoo, I know it’s not much, but you can at least contact GlobalResearch and have the old WP link replaced with this new one.
Lastly, have you installed one of the broken link plugins? They crawl your blog posts for all links and then test them to see if they’re still active. If not, you get a list of broken links and an easy interface to fix them. You don’t have to search through your posts one by one fixing broken links. There are also plugins that will help you restore SEO to the blog, and almost anything else you can think of to get things back working smoothly. I hope this info is of help. Keep telling the truth!
I just found your new site, Craig. I am very pleased as your previous site was one of the very best, and you had mastered the challenge of maintaining high-quality dialogue in the comments. I would like to think that this episode of censorship will cause more people to wake up to the censorship that is underway now. If I ever create a blog it won’t be on Word Press.
Thanks, Chad.