Author of The Blackout Book and the online course Bloom Where You’re Planted
We’ve reached a critical tipping point in the United States in which we’re being turned against one another and silenced via wokism. I submit to you this hypothesis: Big Tech (social media, mainstream media, and companies like Google and Amazon) form an unofficial fourth branch of the government. They’ve gotten so big that they can make sure that billions of people all over the world are never exposed to dissenting opinions.
We all learn in high school civics (well, we did back when we had high school civics) that the government was made up of three branches that formed a series of checks and balances to keep any single group from holding too much power: executive, judicial, and legislative.
Now, on to my hypothesis. The government cannot constitutionally silence dissent or the free press. It’s right there in the First Amendment, which reads:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Of course, this doesn’t apply to private entities like Facebook, Twitter, or Amazon. They can censor anyone they want because they are not the government. So, is the government using these entities to censor opinions that they, constitutionally, cannot?
Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, and YouTube are all protected by the government.
Not only are they able to shut down any conversation they want, but they’re also protected by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. However, with this protection should ethically come the obligation to allow free discourse, something the likes of Facebook, Twitter, and Amazon have been wont to do.
Here’s where their connection to the government comes in.
In my opinion, if they are protected under this law, then they must act impartially in their moderation of content. If they choose not to act impartially, then they should be forced to give up that protection.
That won’t happen, however, because the voices currently being silenced are those that are speaking in opposition to the current administration. Without breaching the First Amendment and governmentally silencing critics, they’re allowing these media and social media outlets to do it for them, making sure that the only voices that are widely heard come from one side of the spectrum. They can do this with full immunity and wanton disregard to liberty because after all, these are private companies, right?
Perhaps not.
If they are moderating only one side of the discussion and allowing the other side of the discussion totally free speech, doesn’t it stand to reason that they must give up this government protection? That if they are moderating the content, then they don’t get the protection of being a free speech outlet?
Here’s an example of biased moderation.
And moderating it they are. Look at this absurd exchange I had – or tried to have – on Facebook. For reference, the original post was about a dolphin managing to communicate with a diver to save his mate that was stuck and couldn’t get free without human help.
As you can see, the entire thing is absolutely ridiculous. There’s an option to click a button that says “I disagree with this decision” and when you disagree they say, “Thanks for letting us know.” Or in other words, “haha, screw you.”
I think that even the most left-wing true believer can look at the exchange above and see that I was not in the wrong and that if the first comment was allowed, so too, should mine have been. For the record – I’m not a Republican OR a Democrat. I’m also not a hypocrite and I don’t think it’s okay to totally silence one side of an argument.
This is important even if you aren’t a social media user.
Let’s say you never use Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube. You never search anything up on Google. You never purchase books or other items from Amazon. You may be scoffing at the very idea of this concept because you don’t even own a smart phone. So this doesn’t affect you at all, right?
Wrong.
Dead wrong. Absolutely, positively incorrect.
The sheer number of other people that use these outlets as sources for their information, opinions, entertainment, and time-wasting means that nearly everyone around you is getting information from only one side of the spectrum. They believe what they’re seeing because it’s all that they’re seeing. They aren’t getting the option of viewing other opinions, so to a non-critical thinker, positively absurd things just seem like they’re perfectly normal. Because everyone thinks that way, or so it seems.
Let’s look at some numbers.
- How many people use Facebook per day? 1.84 billion people PER DAY (source)
- How much time do people spend on social media per day? The average person spends 2 hours and 22 minutes on social media per day. (source)
- How many things are Googled each day? More than 3.5 billion searches per day are performed on Google. (source)
- How many people use YouTube daily? 30 million people use YouTube daily and 1.9 billion use YouTube monthly. (source)
- How many videos are watched on YouTube each day? People watch 5 billion videos on YouTube per day. (source)
- How many tweets are on Twitter each day? There are 6000 tweets per second on Twitter and 500 million tweets per day. (source)
- How many books does Amazon sell? Amazon OWNS the book market. It’s estimated they are responsible for the sales of 90% of all e-books and 50% of paperbacks and hardcovers around the world. (source)
- How many people use Tik Tok? TikTok and its Chinese counterpart Douyin have 1.29 billion active users worldwide. (source)
- How much time do people spend on Tik Tok each day? The average user spends 52 minutes per day on Tik Tok, but keep in mind these are short, bite-sized videos of 15 seconds. Sometimes 4 15 second videos are strung together but imagine the brainwashing power of 52 minutes worth of 15-second intervals. (source)
- How many videos are watched on Tik Tok per day? One billion videos per day are viewed on this social media site. (source)
- How much time do people spend on the internet, in general, every day? In 2019, it was noted that people spent on average 6 hours and 42 minutes on the internet per day. (source) I’d be willing to bet with the Covid restrictions that number has skyrocketed.
When you look at these utterly mind-blowing numbers, it’s pretty easy to see how the opinions of the masses are being shaped in exactly the manner desired.
I’m updating to highlight this part for the folks who just seem to think me closing my Facebook account solves all the problems.
It’s not about us.
It’s about the billions of other people who are only getting one side of the story, who are getting opinions presented as facts, and who are never getting access to anything that counters these philosophies. Big Tech has unfettered, uncontradicted access to the brains of BILLIONS. OF. PEOPLE.
Is that clear enough for you? It has nothing to do with you and your encrypted email, me and my Facebook account, or Jimmy Joe and his Twitter. Open your minds and understand we are looking at a mass shift in the philosophy of billions of people through the use of a technology empire that is nearly too large to combat. Go back up and look at those numbers above. Look at them again. And maybe even one more time if that’s what it takes for you to understand what we’re up against.
It’s all about “othering.”
You’ve probably heard the term “othering” used if you are a regular reader of violence dynamics and history text. Put simply, it means that a person or group of people are somehow different. They’re not like you. They’re more like animals than you and can therefore be treated differently. It’s a way to lessen our mutual humanity.
Here’s a better definition.
Othering is a phenomenon in which some individuals or groups are defined and labeled as not fitting in within the norms of a social group. It is an effect that influences how people perceive and treat those who are viewed as being part of the in-group versus those who are seen as being part of the out-group.
Othering also involves attributing negative characteristics to people or groups that differentiate them from the perceived normative social group.
It is an “us vs. them” way of thinking about human connections and relationships. This process essentially involves looking at others and saying “they are not like me” or “they are not one of us.”
Othering is a way of negating another person’s individual humanity and, consequently, those that are have been othered are seen as less worthy of dignity and respect.
On an individual level, othering plays a role in the formation of prejudices against people and groups. On a larger scale, it can also play a role in the dehumanization of entire groups of people which can then be exploited to drive changes in institutions, governments, and societies. It can lead to the persecution of marginalized groups, the denial of rights based on group identities, or even acts of violence against others. (source)
When you can freely insult and threaten one group of people on social media, but the other group is protected and sheltered, that’s some grand-scale othering happening right there. If I were to mention a different time in history when groups of people were othered to the point of brutal death, I’d be digitally crucified but any critical thinker can figure out exactly to what I’m referring.
I regularly receive messages threatening me with physical abuse, death, sexual assault with all manner of horrifically creative objects, as well as assorted ill wishes for myself, my offspring, friends, and family. But it’s never, ever considered to be “against community standards” when I report these messages. I’m just told to block them. However, I once got banned from Facebook for a month for posting a meme of a cat that looked like Hitler that said “Godwin’s Law.” (It’s a famous internet argument ender when someone gets called a Nazi. Well, it used to be. Before anyone slightly right of far left was considered a Nazi.) If someone beloved by the left got the messages I receive it would be front-page news. For me, it’s just another day in the life of being a blogger.
I’m far from the only person getting these types of messages. Non-public figures who are unfortunate enough to express an opinion that is politically incorrect are regularly excoriated on social media, their lives ruined, their livelihoods threatened, and their entire family subjected to massive public humiliation. Anyone can be “canceled” now and it’s okay because we’re seen as people who “deserve” it if we’re even seen as people at all.
Selco has warned us diligently about how the media bombarded people with the hate the inspired a modern genocide during the Balkan War, which was only 30 years ago. The same thing is happening right here in the United States of America and it’s being buried in 15 second clips and trendy social media pages.
There is no more discussion.
We’re basically living a real life version of Godwin’s law because the argument is over. Social media outlets have combined their extremely significant power to end the argument by silencing anyone who says, “Hey, wait a minute, let’s talk about this.” The rules are not applied evenly and the laws make it so that social media outlets can do this without being held legally responsible.
This is why civil dissent has gone to hell in a handbasket. Nobody knows how to have a debate where two people can disagree and remain friends. Now, every disagreement seems to end with someone being digitally burned at the stake. And speaking of fires, what about the digital book burning going on with things being stricken from the internet because it’s unpopular?
Big Tech has far too much power and influence and the government isn’t stopping it because the government fucking loves it.
THIS is how we can be censored and silenced but still be told we have our First Amendment rights. Because, golly gee, it’s not the government silencing Republicans and Libertarians and free thinkers. It’s social media and Amazon and Google and they’re a private business, remember?
Big Tech is the fourth branch of the United States government.
Big Tech is the shadow fourth branch of the government. It’s the Ministry of Propaganda cloaked as “private business.” They tell us, “If you don’t like our rules, go somewhere else.” Well, we did, and look what happened to Parler. Suddenly Parler was a “threat to democracy” and it was demolished in short order. I hope to see them regain their former popularity but since Big Tech conspired to silence them, they’ve lost a lot of ground. There are other alternative social media outlets but none have anywhere NEAR the reach of the ones I mentioned above and even those aren’t places for discussion. They’re echo chambers that just happen to be a lot friendlier to my point of view.
I want to be able to talk with my liberal friends and my conservative friends and discuss philosophies. That’s how we find common ground and how we win back our Republic – a Republic in which differing opinions can coexist without one person trying to destroy the other. We’re watching the fall of our Empire, being livestreamed on Facebook and YouTube (unless you step out of line – then your livestream will get cut mid-sentence like this one did).
A lot of people think we have gone too far for that kind of peace to ever be achieved and I hope that isn’t the case.
But it certainly can’t be achieved when the only information being accessed by literally billions of people is under the control of those with a Marxist agenda. It can’t happen when there’s a shadowy secret branch of the government masquerading as private industry adding insidious hatred to every interaction, hiding opposing opinions, and turning us against one another.
Our entire culture is being upended and taken over by those with an agenda. That agenda is cloaked in a sunny garment of fairness, equality, and tolerance but underneath that cloak lies hatred, rage, and violence. That agenda is all about control and if you can’t be controlled, you’re going to be silenced.
What do you think?
Does Big Tech have too much power? Should they be treated as private businesses and protected under the Communications Decency Act? If they have that protection, should they be able to moderate dissenting points of view?
Let’s talk about it in the comments section. Because here, for now, we can.
When a politician takes money that bank roller becomes their boss.
Tech has outsmarted them.
Now not only do they pull strings they simply ignore the cries and whines of the politicians which is only a show for The People anyway. Which is funny in a way because it’s The People who made tech so powerful by fulfilling their narcissism.
They pay zero taxes. They do what they want without fear.
All this being said there’s not much to do except take the ride.
Then if they can’t form your opinion your info gets accidentally released:
https://www.businessinsider.com/stolen-data-of-533-million-facebook-users-leaked-online-2021-4
When it comes to campaign contributions, businesses are “people” (Roberts court decision). But only in this particular instance I guess as plenty of other laws/rules don’t apply businesses.
Most moderation by Big Tech as you call them is not done by a live person. Remember, the goal of tech is to minimize (make that almost eliminate) the need for human labor. Think about email – a word or two in the subject/body sends it to your junk mail folder. There isn’t a person checking each email, a program decides.
Free speech is not without its bounds.
It is. Otherwise, it’s not free. Or did you miss that part. There are several recorded cases of “fact checkers” and arbiters on multiple sites which specifically state that the preponderance of these cases are decided by incredibly biased humans. Not bots. While bit driven algorithms do exist to tag posts, humans are still very much in the loop on the actual cancel decision. If you truly think bots are behind all of this, I have waterfront property in Nebraska for sale….
https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/types-sources-and-claims-covid-19-misinformation
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-psychology-of-fact-checking1/
https://m.facebook.com/help/1952307158131536
https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2021/factually-twitter-your-birdwatch-has-problems
https://www.google.com/amp/s/mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKBN2360U0
I work in IT and trust me, labor reduction is first and foremost. Notice I did not say there were NO humans involved. Conspiracy theories abound these days and IMHO, mostly started by those who don’t want us paying attention to what they are really doing (or not doing in some cases).
Selena,
While true, there are filters or even AI that scans for keywords, a human still is the one who applied the filter or wrote the parameters for the AI.
In Daisy’s case, it appears to have allowed the political comment to stand, while any negative reply to be censored/moderated/blocked.
While I don’t dispute her right to comment, I liken it to a penalty in football. The player who responded to a real/perceived wrong got the penalty flag thrown at him.
“However, with this protection comes the obligation to allow free discourse, something the likes of Facebook, Twitter, and Amazon have been wont to do.”
It would be well to point out that while this “may” be considered by some to be a moral or ethical obligation, it is “not” a legal obligation, either from the text of Section 230, or any other area of law.
Good point – I’ll reword that.
On one hand, yes Daisy, I dont use those social media sites.
But dang near half of America does. And that is their primary source for information.
Or should I say misinformation/disinformation.
I heard people, even a few members of Congress still pushing the Capitol police officer was killed with a blow to the head by a Trump supporter using a fire extinguisher. Even after Pulitzer Prize winner and investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald debunked that claim, and the New York Times (whom initially made the claim) made a . . . correction (but not really), people still believe it.
Not only is it misinformation/disinformation being spread on websites like Daisy’s mentions above, but members of Congress are actually pushing for more Big Tech censorship of posts they deem to be not be within community standards, like Daisy questioning a poster of bringing divisive politics into a conversation that has nothing to do with politics.
Again, Glenn Greenwald, along with law professor Jonathan Turley, and journalist Matt Taibbi (I am sure I am leaving out a few hundred more) have all documented and reported on various members of Congress and their efforts to pressure Big Tech for more censorship.
These kinds of efforts should concern everyone.
Many of us in the military have ditched social media, and are not signing up for the alternatives either. Given the climate in the DoD, we are concerned about just this type of backlash. The new legislature around security clearances, wity vauge, entrapping language, is forcing good patriots into the shadows. I have been in for almost two decades-no way in hell am I recruiting my younger family members into the new woke services. We have “Extremism training” scheduled-I will let you know what gets pushed…
Off of Face Book, closed Amazon account. Will not shop at Target stores or buy from Burger King. Will never drink a Coke again or fly on Delta airlines. I understand that much of what Walmart and Dollar General sells comes form China, so they are on my bye-bye list also.
Off topic question: ” If you were a successful person in some Central/South American country, would you walk 1,000 miles to get to the Texas Border?”. The answer is that the folks pouring in here are already the bottom of the barrel, and are just looking for ” FREE STUFF”!!!!!!!!
You’re beautiful I couldn’t agree more! The red & blacks ants shaken in a jar recent post has given this libertarian-freedom minded man a new live-changing perspective! I won’t go on Parlor or WeMet or whatever because I’m not looking for echo chambers either, and I’m very paranoid. I’m quite aware of the WOKE & Gov orgs trying to hacking in & dox everyone. No thanks. After recently learning that the CIA tried to kill the French PM in 1968 (for exchanging legally dollars for gold!) I had a thought: KGB, CIA, is there really any difference?!?
re: Matt in Oklahoma:
“When a politician takes money that bank roller becomes their boss.”
Just a few years before the Rockefeller empire jammed through Prohibition as cover for wiping out alcohol as a motor fuel option so their large city gasoline stations network would have less competition, the 17th Amendment was jammed through Congress (during the utterly corrupt Wilson administration — Wilson having been elected due to secret British money in the 1912 election) to rip away the balancing power of the individual states to appoint — and recall — their US Senators. That created US Senate popular elections elections that instantly became a high dollar auction among the oligarchs who could afford to make sky high “campaign donations.”
The point is that corruption in US politics has been in full stinking bloom since long before we were born.
This morning the attorneys Whitehead (in a zerohedge reprint) painted a gloomy update on American politics with a comparison to the ancient and vicious police state of the Romans during Biblical times:
Stand Up To Tyranny: How To Respond To The Evils Of Our Age, by attys John W and Nisha Whitehead
https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/john_whiteheads_commentary/stand_up_to_tyranny_how_to_respond_to_the_evils_of_our_age
Reprinted here:
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/stand-tyranny-how-respond-evils-our-age
Plus 362 comments…
–Lewis
Daisy,
Where have you been, we have been being fed reconstituted news for over two years, the President of the United States has been cancelled. I am surprised this isn’t a rewrite. If you haven’t started looking into a new platform and haven’t made plans on your eventual move your should be. Welcome to The Great Reset/Agenda 21/2030 is the New World Order” I am surprised and shocked you didn’t see it coming. Additionally, these “people” have been in front of congress at least 5 times and what has been done? Nothing!
Happy Easter, God Bless, Protect an Guide our Country and its’ People.
Gary,
Actually Daisy has posted about Agenda 21/2030 as early as Sept 2015, but this is from JUN18: https://www.theorganicprepper.com/2030-agenda/
So, yes, she is perfectly aware.
As am I. You will see I made a comment or two back then.
She is also aware of how many times the CEO of Facebook, Twitter and Google have been on the Hill. She follows Glenn Greenwald as I do.
You are preaching to the choir.
Daisy,
I fully agree with you. I also think we’re past the point of No return with Big Tech.
I’ve been off Facebook since 2019. I shutdown the account because there was no point in continuing. During the last 6 months I was on there, I was given six 30 day suspensions by their admin within 1 to 2 days of my account reopening. 5 of those bans, were over posts I had made at least 3 years prior to when whomever complained. 3 of the 5, I had already received a ban for years before. It was apparent that I was being harrassed, and that this would continue. So when my account reopened, I shut it down and left FB.
There was no point, when you spend more time being banned that active.
Were the posts that got me banned Vugar, Racist, Threatening, Sexually Inappropriate or Lies? Not by anyone but DemoCommiecrats.
Big Tech and the Main Stream Media, are nothing more than the Propaganda Apparatchik of the Far Left of the Democrat Party, and Democrats will fight like hell to keep them on the Dem Plantation.
Civil War creeps inevitably closer with each passing day.
I’ve always been opposed to regulating the internet, but the blatant censorship practices by big tech are making me rethink that position. Maybe we now need a “Fairness Doctrine” for all Big Tech social media platforms.
Opting out in not the answer on a societal basis. That ship has sailed. We need to stop ignoring it and fix this problem.
Big tech social media platforms have become the equivalent of public utilities and as such their behavior should be regulated such that they are forced to comply with First Amendment freedom of speech, press and association guarantees.
Break them up like was done to AT&T.
why is opting out not an option? Humans communicated and exchanged information for centuries before big tech. True, those methods did not have the reach of today’s platforms, but it worked just fine
Nature abhors a vacuum . If the masses had any brains they would stop using social media altogether. How did we ever exist without it?
Take back your power, you know how.
Ii’m not sure how we allowed the big tech media to gain all this power and no one saw it coming? Every politician saw it coming and NOT ONE did a damn thing about it, so don’t go hold out hope that any of them will stop it in the future either! I hate to say this but Selco may be right it will take, fighting against this control before there isn’t a chance to fight!
It’s real simple – just don’t use social media AT ALL! I keep in contact with family and friends (true friends) via encrypted email. Never have used social media and never will. Using social media is just playing right into the hands of King Klaus and his mates.
I’m really not sure how I can explain it more clearly. It’s not about all of us here, reading this article. It’s about the billions of other people who are influenced with nothing to counter it.
Back in the days of our hunter-gatherer ancestors every member of the small nomadic tribes/clans had a purpose, they had value, they all contributed to the survival of the group – and they had validation from the group. After survival and sex, validation is right up there in importance for the wellbeing of the human psyche, but where to find it in a world of nearly eight billion people? Everybody is searching for some validation; everyone is looking to be important or to have their five minutes of fame. Social medial gives the great unwashed this validation; they are addicted to it and, as such, they are a lost cause.
“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence [contrary to] the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.” – Professor Carl Sagan
A friend (and wildlife carer) who can see what’s coming pragmatically said to me “It’s a time of thinning of the herd”. I would have to agree with her. I don’t know the answer other than hunkering down and trying to save yourselves and your loved ones. I think we’re in for one helluva ride!
There’s a lot of companies, and a lot of countries, that really aren’t ‘hip’ to the whole speechy-thing. Right now, in a country called ‘Myanmar’, people are getting capped off by the military in that country, over dissent.
And, in fairness to The Governments worldwide, the speechy-people can be a bunch of obnoxious, disruptive, destructive adult children who don’t get it. The problem comes when they turn into an angry street mob and start looting and killing and The Government has to lock and load one thirty round magazine and start gunning people down in an effort to dissuade the rest from their mobbishness. Angry mobs can be indiscriminately destructive and eventually authority happens, people get hurt, killed, arrested, prosecuted, and so forth. The anarchists REALLY hate that part, but the reason for rubber truncheons and direct physical abuse and the rest of the stuff that the Hollywood whiners are always on about is that SOME!!! PEOPLE!!!! JUST!!!! WONT!!!! LISTEN!!!, and, that’s when the internet cuts off and you can’t place a mobile call and the paddy wagons roll out and 30,000 people get hauled off and the street lights stay dark and tanks get parked crossways in the street and the gas stations close and brigades of well-armed infantrymen roam the streets ready to dispense the deathpez and rifle butts and do the oppressy-thing, because sadly, it’s the only real ‘language’ that some people honestly understand, or respect. Civilization’s kinda fragile, and some people just want to watch it burn…all in the name of democra-something. Definitely a show you want to miss.
Daisy, Big tech’s power comes from revenues derived from selling YOUR content, information, preferences, interests and even images to curious corporations and agencies. A few years ago, Alex Jones was forced to take down a photo of himself that he had previously posted on Facebook–they claimed that once the photo appears on their site, they own the copyright. Don’t know how that worked out for Jones, and it really doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. If you want to break the back of big tech, you need to stop providing them with “inventory” to sell. If every one of the 80 or so million Trump voters closed their Facebook and Twitter accounts, both of those venues would be financially crippled. There are other venues right now that are friendly to the right like Bitchute, Rumble, Telegram and a new one not quite ready by Mike Lindell, himself–called “Frank”–which he claims will be able to handle over a billion users. True, some will lose some subscribers in making the transition, but if the transfer is gradual enough, your subscribers will follow you. Time to bite the bullet, young lady…
You’re missing the point.
The point is the billions of others who are having their opinions formed for them. If I can get through to any of those people seeing only one side of an argument using those platforms, I will.
It’s not about going to a chamber with a different echo. It’s about opening up discussions.
Daisy, I agree with your argument in part. One of the impacts of the Big Tech surveillance state that is now in operation (I posted a bit about my own recent experience further down this thread) is that we are being segregated into echo chambers, effectively silencing any real public discussion. That is extremely dangerous, and so we must keep finding ways to engage the fence sitters and the ignorant. Boycotts, as President Trump has recently called for, are simply not effective because the Big Tech corporations in question have embedded themselves too deeply in the fabric of the Internet and through it, our lives. So, we must continue to engage.
However, I also agree with Dan Bongino’s belief that if we are to finally restore the public square to it’s proper place and regain our freedoms, we will have to build an alternative online economy and community. I routinely remind businesses I deal with that I do not see their Facebook and Twitter posts, won’t join their Instagram, and I tell them why. Then I invite them to the platforms i use, currently MeWe and Parler. I regularly nag friends and family to get rid of their Fakebook and Twit-World accounts and come join me. Gradually, it is working.
I run the Hobby Metalsmiths group on MeWe. Recently, I’ve started getting several new member adds daily. Almost all of them are people who’ve grown tired of walking on virtual eggshells at Twitter and Facebook, closed their accounts and just joined MeWe. Yes, the oligarchs of Silicon Valley demonstrated their power with the takedown of Parler, and they did a great deal of damage, but Parler is back and recovering. Big Tech/Big Government is not omnipotent. The exodus has begun, and it will break them. I hope you will continue to help drive the trend.
Absolutely pertinent topic, and unfortunately Daisy hit the nail on her analysis. Kudos.
I remember George Gammon saying in one podcast that big tech and social media could become the “de facto” communism/dictatorship, i.e. it would be the way to control and censor people in the not so distant future. That stuck with me and I agree with him.
Another one who’s been warning of this for a long time is Matt Backen (Enemies Foreign and Domestic, The Bracken Collection). He’s always mentioning the “digital Gulag”, we the people being thrown into digital prison by big corp/big tech acting in conjunction with government. But I’ve got to give it to Edward Snowden for calling this to the t.
My issue is not with big tech o banking or whatever. What bothers me is the absolute power imbalance: these players having too much power over us, and we having absolutely none over them. This inequality is disturbing, to say the least.
So then, why are you still using Big Tech social media that hates your guts as much as your government does? Both believe you have no rights. Find a platform that allows free speech. I don’t use social media at all because it’s nobody’s business what I ate for lunch. Stop it! Facebook has just been hacked by a low-level puke and has personal information of half a BILLION people.
You truly are missing the point.
The point isn’t me or you. The point is the billions of others who are having their opinions formed for them. If I can get through to any of them using those platforms, I will.
I hate to have to clue you in Daisy but this has been ongoing for a number of years and the groomed Idiocracy has had discernment conditioned out of their mental make up.
The ONLY way forward is to walk away from social or build a bullet proof alternative that runs outside swamp control (think pirate bay). The US populace is a lost cause and should be viewed as such until the pending crash thins out the herd.
Good one Daisy.
It’s frightening how people are being stirred up to dehumanizing hatred. Frightening how easily it has come about and astonishing how much hatred people can spew while still thinking of themselves as ‘the good people’.
I appreciate your willingness to reach across the gulf and engage people who don’t share your views. I miss civil discourse.
one of the founders of mytwitface, or some social platform filmed a documentary called ‘the social dilemma’ where he explains exactly what the filtering process is and the consequences are. It’s worth an hour or two, it lays out your thesis Daisy.
Ponder this, if you are right, there is a whole generation of people that simply vote because they are only getting one side of the argument, imagine that just because you know something is so, that the majority are working on a lack of information. Explains the current culture.
If any of these private businesses decided to make policies that perceived to have a negative impact on any favored group,the government would take swift action.
Daisy,
I was suspended from Twitter over a month ago, for violating some obscure rule. No specifics given other than some of my posts contained “misinformation”.
I seek the truth & try to inform other’s…
Oh well…I’ll spend less time online now, read many unread books and plan my new out-of-the-city-limits homestead.
Take care,
Dave
https://redstate.com/heartlandinstitute/2021/03/31/section-230-does-not-protect-big-tech-from-state-anti-censorship-laws-n353229
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An interesting take on sec 230.
As long as as we understand the thought police are are at work were ok. Its the uninformed or too lazy to care masses who are deceived by the biased stuff that passes for reporting or “legalised” censorship that we see as destroying true free speech. We see it. Why? Mostly because we know how it was before it became so obvious. Yes to some degree its been there for a long time time but not as openly as now. Not as protected as now. Most seem to have been lulled to sleep while we “older” folks weren’t paying close enough attention. Suddenly wasn’t really sudden at all… it just was so jaringly obviously if you knew a time before that it seemed sudden. Its been creeping up on us for a long long time. Only now it isn’t creeping… its open and in you’re face. And If you bother to mention it they will just shut you up and younger or too lazy folks think it’s perfectly OK. Cookie cutter sameness is OK. Just dont actually think, pay attention , or heaven forbid you try to point out truth. Don’t try to tell them facts. They live for opinion. And it better be their opinion or none at all. And if that’s confusing… they’ve already been conditioned to “know” there are no absolutes. So if you’re absolutely sure you’re right you’re canceled. You can’t be right if you don’t think like they want you to.
Three branches of Government? The Judicial system was never intended to be included as the “Third Branch”. Our Constitutional Republic was intended to “Balance” the power of the Government for the benefit of the inalienable rights of and for the benefit of the people. The Executive Branch was intended to represent a Sovereign or King. The Senate was to represent a Republican form of government based on the ancient Roman form of government of the Republican Senate. The House of Representatives was to be the third “balance” of powers as representative of Greek Democracy. The Founding Father’s understood the danger of a Judicial system that could be easily corrupted by appointed for life, unelected bureaucratic Supreme Court membership. We’ve promoted and elevated the power of the so called “Judicial Branch” to our own destruction.
“That they may do evil with both hands earnestly, the prince asketh, and the judge asketh for a reward; and the great man, he uttereth his mischievous desire: so they wrap it up.
Micah 7:3
“Have they gotten so much power that they’re an unofficial 4th branch of the government?”
no, rather they’re on the same tribal team (always were) and are working on a common goal that they’ve dreamed about for 3000 years – “the nation that will not serve you shall be destroyed”.
The political class has always used various means to control the public narrative with censorship and information bottlenecks (Previously, control of newspapers, book publishers, and the like). The difference today is the technology that is in play. The Big Tech giants are engaged with governments in something far more dangerous than just quashing your Facebook posts. I’ve just experienced an example of this.
Due to the chip shortage, I recently had to purchase a PC rather than building one as I usually do. It came pre-loaded with Windows, and since I haven’t touched a Windows machine in 22 years (Linux user), I decided some experience couldn’t hurt. I ended up wiping the drive and installing Linux Mint, but during this debacle I was forced to create a Microsoft customer account to access tech support. Shortly thereafter, our one cell phone started nagging me to sign into Onedrive to save pics. It’s a Samsung running Google Android, the account is in another family member’s name, and I used a fake name and birth date to create the Microsoft account out of irritation at how intrusive Microsoft was being. We don’t have wi-fi, and the phone has never been physically connected to the PC. Even so, our Android phone suddenly knows our household has access to a Microsoft account. The obvious conclusion is that the Deep State and its Big Tech minions have finished the real time, comprehensive surveillance network we’ve been helping them build.
They can do a lot more with it than just watch us. I also have a website. It isn’t much of a website and there isn’t much there, as other demands have taken my time, but i do blog a bit, and it does get 20-30 unique visitors monthly on average. That will spike a bit whenever I post links to a new blog post on MeWe and Parler. This time, I wrote up this experience with Windows and my observations about Big Tech surveillance and data sharing. My visitor stats dropped to zero the next day and have stayed there. I’m far too small to rate the attention of a salaried human being, which tells me that this surveillance/management system they’ve built is automated, run by AI, much the same as the systematic censorship on Facebook and Twitter is managed.
With the huge amounts of data being fed back to it by our interconnected gadgets, not to mention the gadgets of all the businesses we must interact with, the Deep State can do far more than just ban us from social media or mess with websites. Brace yourselves. Our lives and livelihoods are about to be screwed with in ways we would never have believed possible.
When speaking of government / industry collaboration, recall that media granddaddy Google was formed in the bowels of that big intelligence agency which will not be named, then spun off as a private concern by all the company men. Since Day 1 it has gathered information on each of us, and its AI knows our habits, preferences and history better than we do ourselves.Mixing together this impossibly valuable database with an organizational talent for human engineering and a lust for power and control, they have a powerful tool at their fingertips.
From another site:
This is all about getting the multitudes to worship Satan.
“We’ve reached a critical tipping point in the United States in which we’re being turned against one another and silenced via wokism.” – says the woman who censors people on her “prepper” on MeWe for having the temerity to point out the obvious fallacies of woke “preppers.”
I understand that this blog states clearly that it is for entertainment purposes. And that is a fair disclosure.
Actually, you censored yourself when you removed yourself from my group after I pointed out the cult-like nature of the invitation you offered only to young, married preppers who wanted to procreate in your utopia. If you flounce away in a huff because your premise was questioned by critical thinkers, it’s not really much of a premise, now is it?
The rules on my group are simple and present for one reason – we don’t talk about politics and religion to keep the focus on prepping. By removing those two flashpoints, we have a peaceful and productive community where people learn a lot from one another without all the “noise” of hot-button topics. If you want to discuss politics and religion in conjunction with prepping there are hundreds if not thousands of other groups where you could do that.
I have no interest in having a relationship of animosity with you. You do your thing and I’ll do mine. There’s room in the prepper world for many different points of view, and just because ours don’t mesh doesn’t mean we need to have some kind of ridiculous feud.
Thank you for visiting my website. ????
Wishing you the VERY best.
I’ve been fighting censorship, privacy destruction and basic dictatorship on the internet since around 2010 but even after the lost media and I.P. battles I never imagined that people in my country (Canada) would let them win, much less the U.S.A.
Here Erin O’Toole is working for the same people as the liberals and the U.K. (CANZUK): he’s alienating the conservative base so they’re forced to split the vote and the liberals stay in power without having to rig the election. They gamed the system, we’re fucked, there are no more real liberals (classical). You can’t vote O’Toole unless we kick him out after, he’s causing the split. Trudeau wanted to train the Canadian military to perform psychological operations on the population according to our own media, no need for private partnerships here.
Officially I disavowed my Canadian identity and identify as North American and wish to surrender to the Natives, but next thing you’ll tell me that’s cultural appropriation.