Hi. How have you been? I’m not dead. Just so you know. If you haven’t been following on social media, or, maybe you missed the memo, I was involved in a car accident at the end of January. No one was seriously injured, but I did get a concussion. Then I got really sick with an upper respiratory bug. Now it’s April, and, wow, we have a lot of ground to make up.
This update is going to be meatier than the past ones which were essentially, just, well, fillers. In this article we’re going to discuss:
- The unforeseen danger of the Creative Commons
- Big Tech — We’re looking at you Google — continues to censor us
- Fight back against the technocracy
- Get ye to Gab — Free speech alternative
- Engage with us on Facebook to push back
- If you post about abolition on social media, you’re already a writer
New graphics
You may have noticed some spiffy new graphics appearing around our website. Cool, yes? I think they are cool. Of course, I think they are cool. They were my idea. (someone give me a gold star) Jokes aside, they are generated by Artificial Intelligence from the website Gab.com/AI. Their AI image generator, Gabby, is free to use. I’ve been playing with it for weeks, and have had a lot of fun.
Gabby is allowing us to create a consistent, quality look across the entire website. That said, the impetus for the change was more than aesthetics. Creative Commons assets can be dangerous — We found that out the hard way. We’ll do a deep dive on this topic in an upcoming article, but in the meantime, I’ll give you a brief rundown of the situation.
The unforeseen danger of the Creative Commons
First, if you’re not familiar with images released under a Creative Commons license, it’s essentially a way for artists and content creators to release their artwork for use by the global community under the understanding they’ll receive proper attribution. All sorts of creative content is released into “the Commons,” including music, graphics, videos, and even things like stories and plays. The thing is, once released under CC, anyone who starts using your created asset while it was under a CC license (there are probably some exceptions, this isn’t legal advice.) So, a Creator can’t release a photo, have a bunch of people download it, then remove the CC license, and go after everyone for violating his copyright. That’s essentially what we believe was done.
He employed an agency which makes its money by “license enforcement.” Essentially, creators pay money to this company, they scour the web with bots, find images which match the creators, then determine if a copyright has been violated, and then proceed to send scary emails threatening lawsuits and demanding payment of “retroactive licensing fees” to the tune of $750 (in our case) or more.
Long story short, we didn’t breach the license. We didn’t pay the fee. Even if we wanted to pay the fee — which we don’t — there is no money to pay the fee. Full transparency, Nullify Abortion hasn’t accepted a single donation in over seven years. Our bank account is sitting somewhere south of $20 and we have never broken even. Nullify Abortion has always operated on a net loss. Everything you see on our website was either made by or paid for out of pocket by our members and they were not reimbursed nor was it tax deductible. Not a complaint, mind you, just an admission of reality. We are not a part of the pro-life industry. We’re in this as a labor of love and conviction to save preborn babies from abortion.
Big Tech — We’re looking at you Google — continues to censor us
We used to dominate the Google front page for searches of “Nullify Abortion” up until, you know, the thing that happened last year in May. You know, the convenient leak of the impending Supreme Court decision on Dobbs vs Jackson Women’s Health. The issue isn’t our SEO or security issues with our site. Our site is fine. I mean, we’re always working to improve it, but the issue is with Google. Our Google Business listing (which permits nonprofits) was automatically suspended seconds after it was accepted.
Google is responsible for bringing a significant portion of web traffic to websites. Our website has experienced a significant drop in traffic since the blacklisting started.
In addition, Facebook has reduced the reach of Nullify Abortion’s Facebook page. To the point where, our Facebook page which has almost 7 times more followers than my personal page and had a daily content schedule was getting about 10 percent of the reach. On average, of our nearly 2100 followers on Facebook, only 10-20 ever see our Facebook posts.
In contrast, these are the insights of my personal Facebook page,
Now, I’ll admit, there are some differences in the audience and the content I post on my personal page and what is posted on Nullify Abortion. If I had put some effort into it, that reach could be as high as 1000 and the engagement around 500. However, when we were at 10,000 reach during June of 2022 (a high moment for interest in the anti-abortion movement), we were losing likes, not gaining. Facebook is just not recommending Nullify Abortion to anyone. Our content isn’t appearing in people’s newsfeeds.
Fight back against Google and Facebook censorship
We need your help. I know, everyone hates it when I say that. But this is relatively easy. First, step, ditch Google. It’s actually not very hard. I’ve done it almost completely. Any of these recommendations are just that, we don’t receive any kickbacks. Though, if there is a referral option and you can list us, please do. But that’s not because we have a special deal. That is because we use it and pay for it ourselves already. Everything I recommend will have a good free option we’ve tried already.
- A number of good options exist, here are the few which don’t censor us and we don’t have explicit details on them funding the abortion industry (that’s not to say they don’t):
- For email I recommend Proton.me – One of the world’s best and more secure email providers.
- To replace Google Drive/GSuite, I have three different options:
- For cloud office, I recommend OnlyOffice Personal – This has lots of features and is very similar in functionality to Microsoft Office
- CryptPad – Privacy and security minded cloud office. It’s not as feature rich as OnlyOffice, but it offers end-to-end encryption and a lot of neat features.
- For raw cloud storage, Proton.me. Again, they are one of the industry leaders in privacy and security. I’m not sure if they offer a free version for their cloud storage, but if you want secure file storage online, they are a go to.;
Get ye to Gab — Free speech alternative
Before we talk about what to do with Facebook, let’s talk about Gab. From the last several years of trying to convince people to get onto a platform that doesn’t hate them, isn’t spying on them, and isn’t constantly banning them, I know it’s going to be almost impossible to get you to switch. However, I know can talk some of you into at least registering an account and following following Nullify Abortion on Gab. So, go do it. Now. Shoo. This article will be here when you get back. Goooo. Do eeet. Naaaooo. Get it. Save it. Remember it. You’ll thank me for it later. Trust me.
I’ll add a caveat, Gab isn’t without its problems. Gab takes its free speech stance further than I, as a Christian am comfortable with. This means certain groups of people gravitate towards Gab. The CEO of Gab is himself, a not-so-closet Kinist. These are very serious issues and accusations we do not take lightly. However, we are face with few options. The other social media alternatives do not have the robust privacy and infrastructure of Gab.
Our recommendation for using Gab is NOT an endorsement of any specific beliefs.
Gab controversy: the green elephant in the room
Let’s take a step back. Most people reading this have a Google, Facebook, and/or Microsoft account. You’ve likely purchased from Walmart, Amazon, or eBay and you’ve used banks like Chase, PayPal, or pretty much any other major financial insitution.
These companies are owned and ran by godless heathens. They not only believe in, but advance the cause of the profaning of marriage, the perversion of society, the genocide of children, the grooming of children, the mocking of God, and an ever growing list of depravity and evil. There isn’t a weight list where we can say “this evil is more evil than that evil.” It doesn’t work like that. The heresy of Kinism and the sin of partiality (which racism falls under) are both abominable before a holy and righteous God. The fact Facebook is ran by evil pagans doesn’t make heretical teaching less heretical.
However, when we’re backed up against a wall, we need to look at our options. On one side, you have a platform which is exploiting us for profit to advance an agenda which is directly counter to God’s prescribed will — Facebook. On the other hand, we have a platform which is explicitly trying to advance God’s will, but operated by people who have seriously errant beliefs, but are interested in, at the very last, not hindering, our message of saving babies — Gab. Which is a better place to anchor for safe harbor? The port which will shoot at us the whole time we’re there, or the one, which will lend us aid?
So, sign up for a Gab account. Follow Nullify Abortion on Gab. We can be a positive beacon for Christ and the abolition movement in a relatively young online community.
Engage with us on Facebook to push back
This isn’t to say we’re leaving Facebook. We’re not giving up without a fight. Again, this is where we need your help. Visit our Facebook page, make sure to like, follow, and favorite our page. By adding Nullify Abortion as a favorite, you’ll tell Facebook you want to prioritize our posts in your newsfeed and be more likely to see our posts. If you don’t know how to do that, check out this article from WikiHow on how to add a favorite to your newsfeed.
React, comment, and share every post of ours you see. Facebook helps identify what content is “relevant” based on user engagement. A big part of this is on us to make content which is, well, engaging. We also need you to engage with it. I can’t over emphasize this enough. If you like our content, please make sure you like and share it. If you have suggestions for content, please suggest it.
If you post about abolition on social media, you’re already a writer
Our biggest need is writers. We need people to write. “Just writing” isn’t the end goal of Nullify Abortion, but creating a compendium of arguments and information is an important step in reaching our goals. Creating a community and a following requires creating content. We need content, and it’s hard for one person to do. We’re always one life incident away from three months with no articles.
You don’t have to be a professional writer to contribute. Do you write several paragraphs on Facebook regularly? Do you debate people over issues of faith, politics, and abortion on Twitter? If you can do these things, you can write for us.
For example, this article by Joseph W. is one which I saw on my Facebook newsfeed. I sent him a message and was like, “Hey, this is a really nice post. We’re looking for content like this on Nullify Abortion. Would you like to write for us?” He let us use his post. In these cases, I act as an editor. I check the details, do a little cleanup work to make it work for the context of our website, pass it by him, and then with less than half an hour of back and forth, we have a new article based on a Facebook post.
That doesn’t mean every argument online with abortion militants is our next article, but think about this. Every time you write a post on Facebook, how long is it relevant? It disappears after a few weeks and likely will never be seen again. There articles on our website from 2014 still being viewed today. They can be easily found through searching our website or by search engines (Google excluded…)
What I’m saying is, stop throwing your labor away on one-off encounters on Facebook when you could publish your articles on Nullify Abortion and have a lasting and persistent impact.
April 2023 Wrap Up
Let me know what you think about the new graphics. Stop using Google. It’s 2023, other search engines are actually legit now. Don’t forget to follow us on Gab and the rest of our social media sites. Next time, before you write a 15 paragraph response in a comment section, think, “Hey, maybe this could be on Nullify Abortion so someone else can rage at me and write 15 paragraphs in the comment section here!” And then you get all disappointed when you realize we don’t have comments enabled on our website, but just go with that initial feeling of satisfaction, but they’ll still come to Facebook and whine and cry because we’re telling them to stop killing their kids.
More to come. God bless!
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