Thursday, December 21, 2017

A commentary on the censorship regimes brought in to "combat hate"

Trying to lay this out straight.

1. We know of the tactic of a government diverting all attention to a foreign country, continuously blaming some foreign hostile power for being responsible for our problems.

2. But what if your country's mainstream media which is owned by a handful of corporate owners enmeshed with the military-industrial complex is the one doing this, doing it incessantly, and saying that even your elected government is merely an agent of that evil foreign power?

3. So if your head-of-state was saying "it's the Russians!" the entire time, you wouldn't buy it. You'd say "McCarthyism!". But if it's the TV journos on CNN, MSNBC etc and the folks of NYTimes, Washington Post or the wonderful folks of Huffington Post etc saying "it's the Russians!" the entire time, why would you buy that? Because it fits the narrative that your current President is "literally Hitler" ?

4. We then go on to paint anyone who is even vaguely supporting the side we hate, as a Russian Agent.

5. Meanwhile the mainstream media loudly protests and "publicly pressures" the dominant social media platforms : Twitter, Youtube, Facebook : to clamp down on this "Russian Propaganda" and loosely defined "hate speech" and "fake news" (aka, everything that CNN's Cooper or Lemon says is fake is henceforth Fake News, as dictated by your TV Gods who were telling you to go bomb everyone just a few Moons ago). So busy we are with the fear of the "hate" that we fail to notice that the multi-billion-dollar mainstream media companies are basically demanding for institutional censorship of their competition : The several low-budget, audience-contribution-run or T-shirt-sales-run or herbal-products-funded independent media outlets that for some uncanny reason are all objecting to the status quo. (Hmm, I wonder why...)

6. On cue, as if they've been waiting for someone to make it publicly acceptable this entire time, the tech companies install a slew of mechanisms into their entire content management infrastructure that will let them arbitrarily and without any public transparency whatsoever censor, delete, restrict, ban anything they deem unworthy. At the senate hearings, they boast about how they manually went in and erased out several most-shared news items over lunch. They re-assure the mainstream media and the liberals: "Don't worry, we've got your backs! We are your loyal allies in this Holy fight against Literally Hitler!"

7. And then we go a step further. We bucket in even the voices that have been Anti-Trump this entire time, as Russian Agents. And here we get a peek at the cards : The agenda was not really to go after the rabid supporters of "literally Hitler" : that was the ruse. It was to destroy anyone who says anything against the Mainstream Media's narrative.

8. This is where the hit pieces and censorship tactics on comedian and journalist Lee Camp, of the show Redacted Tonight, stand out as abnormal highlighters. Lee Camp has ALWAYS been anti-Trump. But he made the mistake of not being pro-Hillary either. Oh and he also called out the mainstream media's Russia hysteria. Oh dear, a non-binary gendered, sorry, opinioned, journalist? Blasphemy!

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2017/12/lee-camp-create-nprs-propaganda-seen-hit-piece.html?mc_cid=3791d0f180&mc_eid=edb4888da7
Lee Camp: How To Create NPR's Propaganda – As Seen In a Hit Piece Against Me

https://www.alternet.org/media/lee-camp-new-york-times-jason-zinoman-lies
Lee Camp: How to Write Propaganda for the NY Times—As Demonstrated in an Article About Me

9. The Americans' belief that they live on another planet than the rest of the world comes to life with the social media giants' censorship mechanisms. Brought in to the roar of applause by the Liberals, the Leftists, the Progressives, the SJWs (please decide on one name already, ppl.. ok, the anti-Trumpers), these companies are then going on to use those same mechanisms to help other countries' rulers clamp down on dissent. 

10. Case in point : When Google banned its ads and thus took away the operating revenues of the independent Indian media site JantaKaReporter, which was pretty much the only platform with any kind of popularity that asked the most difficult questions and brought out info on serious potential scams about the present ruling party and allies. The timing was perfect, and the reasons given were as pathetic as the reasons given back in the US for censoring all the independent (sorry, "Hate Speech" ) voices there, with ZERO pathways for appealing or disproving the complaints against them. And with Google being a foreign company here in India, JantaKaReporter doesn't even have any legal recourse through elected representatives or Indian courts. We're just getting started here : expect more internet censorship coming soon! And do note that Google has assisted a right-wing side in India to clamp down on left-wing voices. (does the story of Frankenstein ring any bells?)

11. Oh, and don't tell me you didn't notice how social media giants successfully intervened in the French and German national elections, thickly censoring and in some cases even helping the incumbent authorities imprison voices that were campaigning against the incumbent ruling elites. Sure sure, it was all done under the garb of "preventing hate speech". When has a noble excuse not been used to carry out anti-democratic acts? So much for folks reprimanding foreign entities for interfering in a sovereign nation's election : when it happens for real, you applaud it just because they pretend to be on your side! And I also noticed how the police forces in the UK, Ireland and elsewhere have now declared they'll arrest people for things they tweet. UK also has passed laws mandating ISPs to share everybody's internet histories with the government. Way to go, GestapEU! We didn't know you knocked down the Berlin wall only to extend it to cover all of Europe!

12. The corporates owning the mainstream media can laugh their way to the bank, knowing that the only competition that threatened their dominance and profits : independent media voices that were spreading via social media, now have the playing field institutionally tilted against them, and what's more, they got the "pro-democracy" and "no more hate" and "resist fascism" folks to do the dirty job for them.

13. To summarize, the people self-declaring to be standing up for freedom and liberty and all have, via the fear of Literally Hitler trumped up (excuse the pun) by the mainstream media, been hoodwinked into demanding and bringing about the biggest and most arbitrary global censorship regime in recorded human history. The so-called anti-fascists have made it incredibly easy for real fascists everywhere to take over. If humanity ever manages to break through these shackles, it'll be despite these well-meaning folks, not because of them.

14. Moral of the story? Noble intentions with a sprinkling of fear make excellent paving blocks for the road to hell.

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