Big Tech rigged the algorithm. Then they weaponized it.



The algorithm is its own “Animal Farm.” “Four legs good, two legs bad” may come in the form of binary code, but the tyranny is just as real. Most content in alternative media gets watered down to please the ruling digital overlords.

Unless you work for a company like Blaze Media — which has built talent lineups that can thrive outside the algorithm — odds are, you were made to be ruled.

Big Tech, Big Pharma, Big Trans — they’ve all come for you once. They’ll do it again.

Ever wonder why some “conservative” hosts sound bold on a handful of safe topics but go quiet on election interference or the COVID jab? The algorithm spoke. They complied.

Pound for pound, my show may have taken the biggest hit among conservatives trying to monetize YouTube traffic since 2020. That we managed to hit seven-figure revenues without help from the world’s largest search engine is, frankly, a miracle.

Big Tech operates like a loaded gun, aimed and cocked by the federal government.

The Biden administration didn’t just whisper suggestions. It literally contacted YouTube and demanded the censorship of Alex Berenson. That’s bad enough.

But thanks to research by DataRepublican and DOGE, we now know the algorithm went a step further — using your tax dollars to boost regime-approved content across major tech platforms through USAID.

That’s not just outrageous. It’s an antitrust violation, plain and simple. And I don’t plan on taking it lying down.

For several months, I’ve worked with First Liberty in Dallas — one of the nation’s top constitutional conservative legal organizations. With their help, I filed a formal complaint with the Federal Trade Commission just before Memorial Day. Here’s a key excerpt:

YouTube’s metrics show that the "Steve Deace Show" experienced explosive growth on YouTube in 2020. The show continued strong in 2021, but toward the end of that year, his videos started being removed. And this precipitated a sharp fall in views and impressions in 2022. The sharp decline strongly suggests that YouTube shadow banned or otherwise limited the visibility of the "Steve Deace Show" in 2022 and possibly starting in the end of 2021. During the same period of time where YouTube views and impressions were sharply declining, the "Steve Deace Show" experienced significant growth on other platforms. The show's strong performance on Apple Podcasts maintained their upper trajectory throughout this period of time.

Consider the contrast: While YouTube buried the show in 2021, my podcast was outperforming on Apple — strong enough to earn me a three-year contract extension with Blaze Media. That same year, my book “Faucian Bargain” became a No. 1 bestseller in the United States.

It doesn’t add up — unless you account for censorship.

In 2021, 69% of our YouTube views came from subscribers, 31% from nonsubscribers. In 2022, that number skewed even further — 76% subscribers, only 24% nonsubscribers. That ratio should never tilt that far. Most YouTube traffic typically comes from recommendations, not regular followers.

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  Photo Illustration by Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images

As we explained in our FTC complaint: “This trend line is clear evidence of suppression because it shows how YouTube refused to feature, refused to recommend, and otherwise decreased the visibility of the platform.”

Word is, FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson takes Big Tech censorship seriously. I hope that’s true — because people likely died due to what YouTube did. Shows like mine were offering counternarratives to the COVID cult. And we were silenced.

Whoever controls language controls the debate. That’s why this isn’t just a tech policy fight. It’s a battle for the future of Western civilization.

The left has shown its hand: If they had the power, they’d disappear you. They already tried. Big Tech, Big Pharma, Big Trans — they’ve all come for you once. They’ll do it again.

This isn’t a squabble over ad revenue or traffic metrics. It’s a battle against the deliberate unraveling of reality itself.

So fight we must. And with severe prejudice.

Stay tuned.

Steve Deace vs. Big Tech censorship — the battle everyone should be following



One of the keys to success in digital content creation is mastering search engine optimization — a powerful strategy that boosts a creator’s visibility. SEO involves using targeted keywords in video titles, descriptions, and tags, along with engaging thumbnails and captions, to help search engines like Google and YouTube rank content higher in search results, driving more viewers to discover it.

Here’s how it works: A YouTuber films a cooking video demonstrating a pasta recipe. To reach a wider audience, she applies SEO by crafting a keyword-rich title and description with phrases like “easy dinner ideas” and “quick pasta dish” and adding relevant tags to her video. If she does this well, she increases her video’s chances of ranking higher in YouTube search results, attracting more viewers in a competitive digital landscape.

But what happens when Big Tech shadow cabals in collaboration with federal entities decide to erect virtual barriers that prevent certain topics from appearing on search result pages — regardless of how adeptly the creator used SEO and other content-optimizing digital tools?

BlazeTV host Steve Deace has been living out the reality of that question for years.

  

Topics — especially “controversial” ones — YouTube, Apple iTunes, and Google have deemed problematic are quietly buried under an avalanche of other content. This censorship has been happening for years, so conservative content creators got smarter and found loopholes around the algorithms by avoiding key words and phrases they knew would be flagged and squashed.

However, Big Tech companies are now “transcribing everything that's said on podcasts,” meaning creators cannot avoid the consequences of discussing forbidden topics.

“So let's pretend we spend an entire entire show just debunking the demonic ideology of transgenderism, but we market it in a way that it says nothing about trans in order to try to get around the algorithm. Well, now that they're transcribing that for us, we can't get around that,” says producer Aaron McIntire.

Creators can appeal YouTube’s decision to demonetize their show, but success is rare. “There's basically no recourse whatsoever,” says Aaron.

“I would venture a guess we are the largest show in America with by far the most anemic YouTube traffic,” says Steve. “They're making it so we can't connect with our audiences, and if we can't connect with you, we can't hit the numbers we want to get the monetization we need to keep even doing this at all.”

Steve has been battling Big Tech censorship behind the scenes for years now. Recently, however, his fight experienced a new development when he contacted First Liberty — “the leading constitutional conservative political advocacy organization in the country” — which determined that Steve, indeed, had grounds to file a formal complaint with the Federal Trade Commission.

To hear where Steve is at in the process of fighting Big Tech censorship, watch the episode above.

Want more from Steve Deace?

To enjoy more of Steve's take on national politics, Christian worldview, and principled conservatism with a snarky twist, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

Your kids' iPhones may be the most dangerous things they own



What’s an acceptable level of online child sexual abuse, blackmail, and sextortion? How many teen suicides must happen before someone acts? Most parents would say the answer is obvious: zero.

Apple doesn’t seem to agree. Despite serving as the constant digital companion for millions of American kids, the company has done nothing to rein in the iMessage app — a tool that now functions as an unregulated playground for child predators. Apple has shrugged off the problem while iMessage becomes the wild west of child exploitation: unchecked, unreported, and deadly.

It’s long past time for Apple to confront the truth: Its inaction empowers predators. And that makes the company complicit and accountable.

You wouldn’t leave a toddler alone by the pool. You wouldn’t hand your 9-year-old the keys to a pickup. And when you drive that truck, you don’t let your kid ride on the hood. But every day, parents hand their children a device that could be just as dangerous: the iPhone.

That device follows them everywhere — to school, to bed, into the darkest corners of the internet. The threat doesn’t just come from YouTube or TikTok. It’s baked into iMessage itself — the default communication tool on every iPhone, the one parents use to text their kids.

Unlike social media platforms or games, iMessage gives parents almost no tools to limit its use or increase safety. No meaningful restrictions. No guardrails. No accountability.

Criminals understand this — and they take full advantage. They generate fake nude images of boys and send them via iMessage. Then, they threaten to release the images to the victims’ classmates and followers unless they pay up. It’s extortion. It’s emotional torture. And it often ends in tragedy.

This isn’t rare. It’s growing. Online child-sexual abuse and interaction are spreading fast — and Apple refuses to act.

The statistics are outrageous:

Why do predators prefer iMessage over apps like WhatsApp or Snapchat? According to law enforcement and online safety experts, iMessage offers “an appealing venue” for grooming — a place where predators can build trust with your child. They identify victims on public platforms, then move the conversation to iMessage, where no safety guardrails exist.

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  ljubaphoto via iStock/Getty Images

And children trust it. That familiar blue bubble? Apple teaches them it means the message came from a “trusted source.” Not just another text — another iPhone.

Apple claims to offer a “communication safety” feature that blurs nude images sent to kids through iMessage. But here’s the catch: The alert lets the child view the image anyway. That’s not a safety feature. That’s a fig leaf.

Apple knows exactly what iMessage enables — a criminal playground for sextortion, child sexual abuse, and worse. But Apple doesn’t act. Why? Because it doesn’t have to. The company sees no urgent economic risk. Today, 88% of American teens own iPhones. This fall, 25% are expected to upgrade to iPhone 17 — up from 22% last year.

The numbers tell the rest of the story.

In 2024, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children identified more than 20 million cases of suspected online child sexual exploitation — much of it sextortion. Instagram reported 3.3 million. WhatsApp logged more than 1.8 million. Snapchat topped 1.1 million.

Apple reported 250.

No level of child sexual exploitation is acceptable. Not one instance. Content providers and app developers across the industry have taken steps to protect children. Apple, by contrast, has shrugged. Its silence is willful. Its inaction is a choice.

It’s long past time for Apple to confront the truth: Its inaction empowers predators. And that makes the company complicit and accountable — economically, legally, and morally.

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How the CCP pays influencers to attack Falun Gong and Shen Yun



Tim Pool, the host of the wildly popular “TimCast” on YouTube, boasting over 4 million subscribers and 3 billion views on his three channels, exposed how the Chinese Communist Party pays off influencers to push its narrative, such as attacking the Falun Gong and Shen Yun.

During an episode of his show, Pool shared how the CCP unsuccessfully tried to recruit him — an explosive revelation that essentially went under the radar.

Every one of the 10 New York Times articles attacking Shen Yun has been artificially promoted by CCP bots.

Pool revealed that the CCP has a task force devoted to attacking the Falun Gong.

The Falun Gong people were handing out flyers and stuff, and it’s funny because China started hiring YouTubers. They offered — I’m pretty sure I got offered this at one point — they said they’d give me $200 to post a video to my YouTube channel.

He continued:

It was a video of a white dude complaining about this group. And I’m thinking, "I’m not posting this to my channel." But a lot of people were like, "Two hundred bucks, I’m gonna take it."

New York Times and CCP collusion

Joshua Philipp, the host of “Crossroads,” had a similar story about how the CCP boosted the New York Times’ recent hit pieces on Shen Yun.

Since August 2024, the New York Times has ramped up attacks on Shen Yun Performing Arts, a renowned organization dedicated to reviving traditional Chinese culture before the Chinese Communist Party regime took over, uprooting traditional culture and violently silencing dissent. The frequency of the hit pieces borders on an obsession — publishing 10 hit pieces on the topic within the past six months alone.

These pieces, authored by the so-called investigative reporters Nicole Hong and Michael Rothfeld, allege mistreatment of performers and financial improprieties within Shen Yun. Over 60% of Hong’s articles since August have focused solely on discrediting Shen Yun. Performers quoted in these articles have since spoken out against the Times’ shoddy reporting, calling it misleading and inaccurate.

Interestingly, Hong’s father is a visiting professor at CCP-affiliated Zhejiang University and Jiangxi Normal University in China. The former is a public university affiliated with China’s Ministry of Education, while the latter is co-sponsored by the Ministry of Education and the communist Jiangxi Provincial Government.

It would be shocking if they didn’t have any pro-CCP bias.

Epoch Times investigative reporter Joshua Philipp explains:

A network of thousands of CCP-linked accounts — fake accounts, some of [which] may be operated by Chinese spies on the internet, were promoting the New York Times. The New York Times was writing hit pieces on Shen Yuan Performing Arts, which the CCP is targeting. As a result, Shen Yun got targeted with bomb threats and death threats, but the New York Times is not covering that. Instead, they're using these hit pieces targeting Shen Yun doing the exact thing the CCP wants, and then the Chinese Communist Party-linked accounts are promoting the New York Times articles. Thousands of these fake accounts tied to the CCP. Some of them have now been removed by X. This is confirmed, our investigation has shown.
— (@)  
 

CCP ‘Twitter bots’

According to the report that Phillip is referring to, over the past month, X has removed thousands of accounts suspected of being linked to the CCP. These accounts primarily promoted articles from the New York Times critical of Shen Yun, which showcases traditional Chinese culture and exposes CCP human rights abuses. One Chinese-language article attacking Shen Yun became the most shared New York Times piece on X in over a year, amplified by these banned fake accounts.

Cybersecurity experts said the activity resembled a nation-state automated bot attack. X has confirmed it removes millions of accounts weekly for spam and manipulation violations, including these. CCP bots artificially promoted every one of the 10 Times articles attacking Shen Yun.

The CCP’s motivation is Shen Yun’s connection to Falun Gong, a group it has sought to “eradicate” since 1999 to maintain state atheism. China has detained Falun Gong practitioners for “re-education through labor,” tortured 2,000 to death as of 2009, and killed 65,000 to harvest their organs from 2000 to 2008 alone.

Xi’s propaganda escalation

Whistleblowers with ties to CCP security confirmed a 2022 campaign launched by Xi Jinping to discredit Falun Gong overseas, using Western media and social media platforms like X. The New York Times articles align with this effort.

Data analysis revealed that 80% of accounts sharing these articles had zero followers, indicating bot activity. Other signs of inauthenticity included repetitive posts across accounts and crude anti-Falun Gong content mirroring CCP propaganda. Some accounts, active since 2019, shifted to exclusively anti-Falun Gong posts over time, often using stolen or AI-generated profile images.

New bot accounts continue to emerge, leveraging AI to create believable profiles and amplify content efficiently. Even accounts with over 10,000 followers showed inauthentic behavior, often hijacked, purchased, or repurposed from older, dormant profiles. This operation reflects a bold escalation, with the CCP increasingly operating openly rather than in the shadows, raising significant concerns about foreign influence on American platforms.

23andMe files for bankruptcy as founding CEO Anne Wojcicki seeks buyback for pennies on the dollar



DNA testing firm 23andMe has filed for bankruptcy in the United States following what was reported as weak demand since a catastrophic data breach in 2023.

As Reuters reported, founding CEO Anne Wojcicki announced her resignation but has quickly attempted to buy the company back at a much lower valuation than it had once peaked at.

Fortune originally reported that Wojcicki recently offered more than $74 million for the company, but soon updated its report with an SEC filing purporting to show an new purchase offer worth $42 million.

The recent valuations are light-years away from the $6 billion the company was reportedly worth after going public in 2021.

As Blaze News noted in early 2024, 23andMe's reputation took a massive hit when customers of the DNA-identifying company had their data breached, an infiltration that impacted 6.9 million account holders. This totaled nearly half of the company's users and resulted in dozens of lawsuits.

'Users negligently recycled and failed to update their passwords ...'

In a letter sent to users from a legal firm representing 23andMe, the company denied fault and shifted the blame onto users for using "recycled" passwords.

Cyber criminals used a method known as "credential stuffing," which involves hackers using login credentials taken from other hacks to attempt to log in to different online accounts belonging to the same person.

The 23andMe hack was accomplished through this method, with hackers gaining access to 14,000 user accounts, then using that access to gain further entry into the company's database of users who had opted into the website's DNA Relatives feature.

"As set forth in 23andMe's October 6, 2023 blog post, 23andMe believes that unauthorized actors managed to access certain user accounts in instances where users recycled their own login credentials — that is, users used the same usernames and passwords used on 23andMe.com as on other websites that had been subject to prior security breaches, and users negligently recycled and failed to update their passwords following these past security incidents, which are unrelated to 23andMe," the letter claimed.

Anne Wojcicki is the sister of recently deceased YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki, who was not seen favorably by YouTube content creators due to ongoing censorship and monetization issues.

The family connections have resulted in users asking where their data went, how it has been used, and why the founding CEO wants to buy back a failing company.

23andMe has been unable to maintain its user base since the data breach, with marketing ploys like continued feedback and personalized wellness plans failing to acquire repeat customers.

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