We are watching the unfolding of despotism in real time. It is giving all of us a lesson in how it works. They locked us in our homes, closed our businesses, told us we can’t go to church or to restaurants, and restricted our travel, but then a problem began. Many people started objecting, and they asked questions.
If there’s a pandemic, why is there no focus on basic therapies? Why is the sole emphasis on an untested vaccine? How in the world are all these measures going to fix the problem?
There were too many anomalies to keep this up despite the attempt to make the panic last as long as possible, certainly through the 2020 election but then longer and longer. Finally, everything seemed to be falling apart for the mainstream narrative even though the media kept broadcasting it daily.
That’s when the despots turned to the one weapon they had left. They tried to shut everyone up.
At some point in this trajectory, it became obvious to close watchers that the public mind was faced with aggressive attempts at curation. All the main channels became closed to debate. Post the wrong thoughts on Facebook or Twitter and you find yourself throttled or canceled. Post a video on YouTube and it’s taken down. Write an article and Google somehow can’t find it for anyone to read.
This has been going on in its current form for three years now, but it really dates back to 2001 and the misnamed Patriot Act. It authorized an unprecedented amount of surveillance of the American people that mutated into aggressive censorship.
When I talk about this with friends, they immediately point out that there are plenty of channels and venues in which people can speak. It isn’t censorship if there are ways to express yourself. But that’s a crude understanding of how things work. If government controls 95 percent or more of the main ways that people get information, and if when you say the wrong thing, every technology is deployed to make your thoughts disappear, that’s censorship.
That was the moment I realized the game. If you say the right thing, you are awarded with influence. If you say the wrong thing, you are buried. This is how it works. The censors aren’t that bugged about your speech if no one hears it; it’s the tree that falls in the forest that no one was around to hear. The game of curating the public mind involves amplification and minimization. It’s technological wizardry that makes it all possible.
What’s remarkable is that all the censorship efforts of the past three years have come at the expense of normal management of media venues that would be expected of any responsible company.
The story reads: “Pedophiles have long used the internet, but unlike the forums and file-transfer services that cater to people who have interest in illicit content, Instagram doesn’t merely host these activities. Its algorithms promote them. Instagram connects pedophiles and guides them to content sellers via recommendation systems that excel at linking those who share niche interests, the Journal and the academic researchers found.
“Though out of sight for most on the platform, the sexualized accounts on Instagram are brazen about their interest. The researchers found that Instagram enabled people to search explicit hashtags such as #pedowhore and #preteensex and connected them to accounts that used the terms to advertise child-sex material for sale. Such accounts often claim to be run by the children themselves and use overtly sexual handles incorporating words such as ‘little slut for you.’”
The story goes on in astonishing detail. One might suppose that the story would absolutely rock the entire world of media. After all, such content is not only a violation of the terms of use. It’s also contrary to all federal law.
Incredibly, the story didn’t get much attention at all. There was near silence apart from The Epoch Times. A week later, the story has disappeared. We got a quiet “oops” from this company, and that’s about it.
Keep in mind that Instagram is owned by Meta, which also owns Facebook, which is run by Mark Zuckerberg. This is the guy who volunteered to turn over the world’s most powerful social media organ to Dr. Anthony Fauci to administer during the biggest crisis of our lives. Even as posts questioning lockdowns, masks, and vaccines were blocked and deleted, the same platform was providing free space and boosting technologies to the most ghastly dregs on Earth.
This confluence of these two realities should be a scandal for the ages. Instead, what we get is silence. In other words, the censorship itself is being censored. And this is how it is supposed to work.
There’s another factor too. The censorship seems arbitrary sometimes because it is supposed to. Sometimes, your post is deleted for no apparent reason and then another gets through that one might suppose would trigger the censors. It’s hard to make sense of it and hard to comply. This is intentional. Every authoritarian government behaves this way. It is designed to make us fear and comply through self-censorship. We spend so much time trying to figure out the game that we truly forget what it means to exercise genuine freedom.
For the first time in my life, we all seem to live in two realities. One is that which we hear in public life. The other is that which we know from talking to friends, family, and neighbors. The best example today concerns the necessity, safety, and effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccines. In private, it seems like everyone has a story that contradicts the media line.
We talk about injury, adverse effects, and even death. And yet you hear almost nothing about this in public life, simply because the media outlets are owned by the manufacturers and the government heavily backed the whole program. Even now, this topic is the third rail that anyone successful can’t touch for fear of professional destruction.
It takes a person of bravery and dedication to high principles to break these rules in such times. We are all in their debt. Without the freedom to speak without fear, the rest of our freedoms are in grave jeopardy. Some people today even deny that there is any problem to solve, even though the constraints on our ability to speak keep intensifying by the day.
Long run, I’m an optimist on this topic. There are enough smaller venues that are willing to speak and take the risks. I sense daily that the official narrative on all these topics is starting to crack, and the people who insist on the truth of the lies seem to be weakening. It’s a long, hard struggle, but it’s one that we have to win.
