By Cliff Montgomery – Aug. 31st, 2018
Everyone understands why it is important to keep government officials from deciding what you may say, see, hear and read. An official who controls such things will surely end up controlling what you think and feel. Everyone understands that it is the action of a tyrant.
But these days, government types aren’t the only ones who may employ such measures. Corporations like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube – who often control our modern, computerized means of talking to one another – have begun to censor our communications according to their personal biases.
All in the name of serving the public, of course – the eternal rallying cry of all tyrants.
But let’s make this clear: When anyone insists on censoring the ideas, theories and images you express to others, they are not doing it for you. They are not doing it for ‘decency’. They are censoring these things for themselves, to either grab power or to maintain it.
And like all tyrants, their censorship soon proves to be arbitrary and ill-founded. The current corporate attempt at censorship sometimes is performed in the name of weeding out the infamous ‘bots’ that, according to many, destroyed Hillary Clinton’s inevitable and rightful coronation as our queen … whoops, we mean, as our president.
The result? Our frightened Democratic-leaning social media corporations have been silencing individuals who openly disagree with the companies’ view of the world – particularly if those individuals post to the social media sites often.
The accounts of the censored individuals were “suspended or frozen for ‘suspicious’ behavior — apparently because of the frequency and relentlessness of their messages,” according to the Associated Press (AP). Or perhaps the censors can’t fathom that anyone except a (moderate) Democrat can ever be genuinely enthusiastic about a political idea…
When these individuals “started tweeting support for a conservative lawmaker in the GOP primary for Illinois governor this spring,” added AP, “news stories warned that right-wing ‘propaganda bots’ were trying to influence the election.”
“Almost all of us are considered a bot,” Nina Tomasieski, a 70-year-old grandmother, told AP.
Tomasieski “lives in Tennessee but is tweeting for GOP candidates across the U.S.,” stated AP.
Cynthia Smith, another person who often posts to Twitter, “has been locked out of her account and ‘shadow banned,’ meaning tweets aren’t as visible to others, because of suspected (i.e., presumed) ‘automated behavior,’ ” continued AP.
“I’m a gal in Southern California,” Smith told the wire service. “I am no bot.”
Recently, a number of social media sites also have placed a ban on the posts of conservative commentator Alex Jones. No one confused Mr. Jones with a ‘bot’. Those who run the social media sites simply don’t like what he has to say, and so he was banned.
This is not an attempt to stop some presumed ‘outside influence’ of our pretense to democracy. It is simply a group of wealthy, powerful people banning someone’s statements because they disagree with him.
Now, the American Spark is certainly no friend of Alex Jones or the often strange ideas he spouts. But we believe that the old statement often attributed to French political thinker Voltaire remains the essence of a free people:
“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
On Tuesday, the Spark will follow up this article with a number of quotes from the great George Orwell, immortal writer of 1984 and Animal Farm. Mr. Orwell said a number of very interesting things about the dangers of such corporate censorship. We feel that his statements on the matter are especially pertinent today. And we believe you’ll feel the same way after you read Tuesday’s follow-up article.
