Independent Media Duped, Begging Government to Regulate Social Media
Mike Adams of naturalnews and real.video was on the Alex Jones show last week, talking about the social media censorship issue. Alex Jones and InfoWars were censored and banned from many sites a few weeks ago, including Facebook, YouTube and Spotify, in case you didn't know.
The way they see it, is that Google and other companies are aligning with China and their authoritarian policies to control free speech of their citizenry, and will be bringing that methodology into the Western tech world.
Mike Adams foresees a censorship tyranny role-out in America, where big tech companies develop and test out censorship technology in China, that will eventually be brought to the West. He says it won't be long before the Google's Chrome browser and Mozilla's Firefox will block users from being able to view certain sites, such as independent alternative media sites like infowars or naturalnews.
The next step for greater tyranny and control of free speech online would be to seize domains of the independent media sites, shutting them down and silencing their voice for good. The final step would be for big tech to bring in China's Social Credit System as a Global Social Score to block anyone they want, only allowing those with an internet ID to have access online.
If this happens, it will indeed be a dark age for mankind, with little privacy or rights compared to what we have now. Chinese citizens are apparently in a "toilet revolution", because one of the only places they can freely write is on the walls of toilets.
These potentialities are a real threat. But what's troubling with the position of Mike Adams and Alex Jones, is that they are being fooled into asking them government to regulate social media to ensure an "internet bill of rights and free speech".
pixabay, pixabay, wikimedia
Alex Jones said:
"How do we get congress to understand [that] their inaction on regulating the internet for internet bill of rights and free speech is allowing the EU and China to come in to fill the vacuum... It's a national security issue."
The fear of losing internet freedom and being relegated to writing on toilet room walls has these two alternative media icons calling for government regulation to save us from the evils of big tech. But they forget about the evils of big government who wouldn't have much issue in regulating the freedom of society by employing the same means, and themselves copying the methodologies being employed in communist China.
Mike Adams and Alex Jones both are supporters President Trump, and MIke Adams specifically mentioned the need for the President to get involved:
This is what it's coming to. Again, this has to be stopped. These tech giants will not voluntarily stop their censorship. The president and congress is going to have to get involved and take some decisive action. If they don't, we lose any last remnants of the First Amendment in America.
What this ensures, is that government will be able to create "laws" to legally mandate control over social media, and therefore legalize censorship. It's better when these enterprises are doing it on their own, without legal force and violence behind them to authorize their actions. In a free market with causal forces, if people want to be responsible and care about what is happening, they can all leave these censorship platforms and go to more freedom-friendly platforms. It's up to us, the people, to choose what tools we use and where we go.
If people like Alex Jones and Mike Adams get their way, it will actually bring us closer to authoritarian tyranny imposed by the state like in China. They say they fear tech giants aiding China to bring those tyrannical models to America, but seem to be begging the government to take control. This will risk their fears becoming an even greater reality than if they tech giants are left to their own devices.
The real path forward to ensure more freedom online is for people to change their behaviors and show their disapproval by no longer supporting the social media tech giants who engage in this censorship and control of the independent alternative media and anyone else. Begging the government to control social media will likely end up creating a bigger problem than we have now. We need to take power back and connect elsewhere if the existing avenues are leading us to further control and loss of freedom.
We're being played. But, who are the ones doing it? The tech giants that create the problem, and certain politicians that propose the regulation "solution" are part of the issue for sure. Are these alternative media icons "shills" or "agents" as some claim? Or are they merely being duped as pawns in a game to create a problem that begs people to demand a solution?
I wonder if the independent media who are asking for this would like to have the same done to them. Would they like to have government regulate them and tell them who they can or can't allow on their sites? I don't think so. They aren't thinking straight in their emotional state of being censored or fear of future censorship.
Fear can get the best of people. The demand for someone/something (government) to solve this censorship problem might have them falling for a con game being played on them and everyone else to establish control over the internet and free speech. Whatever is really happening and who are all the players willfully orchestrating or participating in this conspiracy might be in question, but what can be said with greater certainty is that many people are falling for this problem-reaction-solution con game.
Thank you for your time and attention. Peace.
If you appreciate and value the content, please consider: Upvoting, Sharing or Reblogging below.
me for more content to come!
My goal is to share knowledge, truth and moral understanding in order to help change the world for the better. If you appreciate and value what I do, please consider supporting me as a Steem Witness by voting for me at the bottom of the Witness page.
We can't forget about the NSA/DOD/DHS/DAE contracts with the tech giants and the small contractors for data mining, surveillance and cloud services. American tax-payers have provided the funds that have gone into surveillance programming. To what end? Censorship. Google, Facebook, Microsoft and others, all have transparency reports, stating how many requests governments have made to them for user information and the take down of content. Since the beginning of the year, Google reports nearly 10 million YouTube videos have been removed. Most of us wouldn't have imagined so many, right?
Alex Jones is one to watch, but not because he's informative. Rather, he often nudges his audience toward the Conservative goals. This time around, internet censorship and surveillance is a dual-partisan objective. In April, the Judiciary Committee hearings grilled the Big Three CEOs about data security and the Cambridge Analytica breach at Facebook. They were invited back for the July hearings, but sent reps instead. They all conceded to pressure from Congressional Reps to deplatform Jones and the Fake News Alternative Media and to ensure that MSM content was pushed to the top of feeds.
On May 1, Facebook had it's annual general meeting of shareholders. Zuckerberg was pressured to downgrade his stock, split his CEO/Chair role, FIRE himself and produce MORE reports on Facebook user activity and demographics. Does it sound like privacy is a priority for shareholders? Just days after the July Congressional hearing, Facebook stock crashed. Zuckerberg lost $120B within hours. The stock is yet to recover. By August 6, he was onboard to deplatform Jones.
By Aug 14, George Soros buys up Facebook and Twitter stock and dumps Google and Amazon. Are you starting to see how many layers are involved? Open MIC is one of two Facebook shareholders holding a lot of stock, who were most insistent at the annual general about making those changes. Open MIC is funded in part by Tides and Tides is funded in greater part by George Soros.
In the last hour, Alex Jones is announcing that CNN has announced that INFOWARS is to be reinstated on Facebook, Google, Apple and reassures people that no one is being censored. I haven't found actual CNN statements to that effect.
At most I found a search result for a YT video with a partial description stating, "Alex Jones presents video footage of Roger Stone on Chris Cuomo's CNN show where he openly calls out the tech left's censorship campaign of conservatives acr..."
See how this game is played? This is not a 'good guys' versus 'bad guys' scenario. It's all propaganda, left, right and center.
Thank you for the detailed analysis. In the larger picture, yes it's all a political game to pay people against each other and keep going around in circles :/
Well, I'm glad your informative posted lured me in to comment! Thank you. :)
There is another approach to regulating social platforms that neither of us anticipated in the post thread, and that is voluntary adoption of the Internet Bill of Rights by social platforms. Not only is that a possibility, it just happened! Here's a post with links to the news article and related info. To summarize EFF is championing the Manila Principles On Intermediary Liability and Minds.com has adopted them.
Alternative social network Minds.com has debuted a digital bill of rights amid accusations of bias and political manipulation at Google, Facebook, and other Big Tech companies.
https://steemit.com/informationwar/@justmeagain/alternative-social-network-minds-com-has-debuted-a-digital-bill-of-rights-amid-accusations-of-bias-and-political-manipulation-at
Cool, that's good of them to adopt. But will they always align with it ;)
Inaction costs nothing, so I can't see why they would adopt censorship policies. I've been following the Facebook situation. To summarize, the April and July hearings and the May 1 shareholder meeting resulted in demands from 2 big shareholders to pressure FB to get strict with censorship, ensure 'fake news' and specifically Jones are deplatformed and MSM are always top of the feeds. FB hired thousands to do what the shareholders demanded.
July 25 they had a shareholder conference call and shareholders were told that the 4th quarter profits would be 20%. That's a decent profit for a mid-life company. The profit for previous quarter was double that, but because of the surveillance and censorship demands from the shareholders, hiring expenses would be up 60%.
Well, at about 3:30 one or more shareholders dumped stock, likely while still on the call. The cost was $120B to Zuckerberg!
So, the moral of the story is that censorship is expensive, while allowing free speech is FREE of cost for the platform. I'm sure Ottman knows it.
Censorship is a real and deeply concerning problem, like privacy invasion, it is getting worse bit by bit daily, as ad sellers let their content be dictated by as buyers worried about their "brand".
This stuff doesnt happen overnight, its years even decades in the making; But we should be concerned now.
Having said that govt intervention over media or social media is not the answer.
The "individual" has to fight back every time we are told "you cant say that", we have to defend freedom of speech because without free speech, which includes the right to post videos interviewing contrarian guests, we have no freedom of thought.
Thought and speech are linked. Defend yourself. No one will do that job better than you.
Hear hear! Without freedom to speak, next comes thought and the though police :/
Good of you to call out this ploy. I've noted it myself.
I favor a scale dependent solution. At the small scale, people can put up any kind of system and censor as they see fit. This preserves the right of people to not service people they disagree with on platforms they have created. It also keeps all regulation away from individuals and small business so that the bar of entry into the communication/social media marketplace is kept low.
After a certain scale, platforms are ruled a utility service and aren't allowed to censor anyone - just like telecommunication companies. People should be just as allowed to exercise free speech there as they are when talking to someone on the phone. I even believe incitement should be covered by free speech -albeit, people who actually commit violence should be held to account and/or risk profiled to ideally prevent it.
A solution dichotomized by scale preserves greater freedom than solutions that disregard scale.
That scale model is interesting. That way the little ppl aren't hurt while the big names have to pay up. But it still gives power to the central government. It's a better option for sure though ;)
Capitalism tends to reward competitive companies by making them larger. Large companies are fewer than small companies so choice among them is intrinsically reduced. It is more profitable for large companies to approach the traits of a monopoly so under capitalist forces alone, they do. Collusion among companies collectively produces the traits of a monopoly so under capitalism alone collisions will automatically arise. It is in the interest of monopolies to obstruct competition which may displace them, so they do.
What factors do you believe will compel large companies to act in the interest of the people if not something like government? It certainly isn't capitalism. Capitalists (incl. AnCaps) and free market believers have the assumption that a high degree of competition is the stable point for capitalistic systems. It is not. High competition represents an immature market and is a transitional period. As all markets mature, they arrive at ever increasingly stable monopolies and collusive collaborations.
Some force beyond capitalism alone is required to coerce quasi-monoplies to act in the interest of the people when the inevitable corruption of competition unlinks the interests of the people from the goals of the company.
How is it that every single organization with the ability to censor speech derives it's power from the people, yet everyone keeps acting so powerless?
It seems most people would rather complain about symptoms than take action to solve the issues at their root.
Most folks are literally expecting the problems to to fix themselves, they don't want to have to do anything.
Good luck trying to change reality without changing your behavior.
Thanks for the post @krnel!
Yup, we give them power, we gave them the attention, and they took the power and made themselves powerful. I've mentioned that a few weeks ago in another post. Yeah, problems don't fix themselves, it ppl who act to make things change or they just stay the same or get worse.
It's better when these enterprises are doing it on their own, without legal force and violence behind them to authorize their actions. In a free market with causal forces, if people want to be responsible and care about what is happening, they can all leave these censorship platforms and go to more freedom-friendly platforms. It's up to us, the people, to choose what tools we use and where we go.
Yes, this is exactly right! This is what I have been saying from the start and Rush actually had a great diatribe saying the very same thing yesterday. Any of those sites that kick off their users and content creators can become the next Myspace overnight. Here we are on a platform that is censored in a much different way. Other platforms will arise with even less censorship.
Yeah it can happen, and hopefully it does. I just don't know what the other platform will have to attract ppl other than being less censored, which all these big ones were when they started anyways...
kids don't want to be on the same site on their parents. they may already be on whatever will be the next Facebook.
Nice job, you really nailed it in this post! More fear-mongering from Alex Jones - No surprise there, and I don't think he's been duped, rather just playing his role as top dog of the controlled opposition. It's sad to see people like Mike Adams fall for the whole begging for government to save us from tyranny narrative, when they are essentially begging for more tyranny! Sad to see so many 'independent' voices like these still blindly supporting Trump after all he's done, too.
I think Mike Adams has been duped and Alex Jones is definitely an agent. But I could be wrong...about Mike Adams... Even if Jones isn't an agent, he's no good for the truth and freedom movements.
Yeah he doesn't make things look "acceptable" for the mainstream audience to accept more of the so-called "truther" movement, but appearances are deceiving and ppl fall for false appearances all the time int he mainstream, they don't always reflect a true reality.
I disagree with regulating Social Media.
It will stop people from creating new ones and make a monopoly out of the ones now.
It's a free speech issue and they should be fined for it. But then again they are a private business.
If you don't like the service that a company provides, then take your business somewhere else.
Yup, regulation always only helps monopolies become bigger ones or makes sure to create them :/
It’s a difficult time in the freedom realm of our world. The freedoms people enjoy in America and Canada dictate the freedoms people enjoy elsewhere. I see the merit of both sides of the argument. It’s difficult to say definitively which one is better though.
Yup, all eyes should be on the US. What happens there reverberates everywhere. The last bastion of freedom as I see it. If the guns go, the globalists win.
If you haven't read Buff Parry's email to Noam Chomsky you should. It is a withering rebuttal of the Deep State, and they aren't pulling any punches.
a link:
https://www.prisonplanet.com/free-speech-icon-noam-chomsky-says-big-tech-was-wrong-to-ban-infowars.html
I have used this email exchange to red pill more than one of my friends who incredibly still deny the existence of the Deep State, Cabal, New World Order, Vicious Misanthropes....whatever. Incredible.
Thanks for another insightful post @krnel
Koo, thanks for the link. I'll check it out.
Doesn't this guy have something to do with all these issues in some way
Is that Ajit Pai? He didn't like Open Internet, even when he was working for Obama. Maybe that's why Trump asked him to become FCC chair. The fight is still on for Net Neutrality restoration. As of Aug 20, Mozilla and others filed this...
Public Knowledge FTC Comments on Consumer Welfare And Algorithmic Tools
August 20, 2018
https://www.publicknowledge.org/documents/public-knowledge-ftc-comments-on-consumer-welfare-and-algorithmic-tools
The Net Neutrality gloves came off Dec 2017 with a 90 day ramp-up period. By April, I was witnessing heavier censorship on Google with user comments being spam filtered all over the place. However, I had been tracking it since April of 2017. There's nothing sudden about the deployment of the surveillance and censorship program. Snowden and Assange have been sounding the alarm bells for years. We sleepy Hobbits just don't move as fast as the fires they keep lighting under our butts! They want a war and all this information makes it difficult to whip us into a frenzy of fear and ferocity against 'the enemy de jour'.
Meh! Is it dinnertime yet? :)