Censorship has become one of the ‘new normals’ in society. Over the past two years, big-tech has made it their business to determine what information is safe for human consumption.
After all, the rise in online censorship is about protecting us from dangerous information, right?
Freedom of Speech
Historically Freedom of speech has been something of a quandary for societies. This basic freedom has been fought on both sides for millennia.
The ancient Greeks pioneered free speech as a democratic principle.
The ancient Greek word “parrhesia” means “free speech,” or “to speak candidly.”
The term first appeared in Greek literature around the end of the fifth century B.C.[1]
But as Socrates himself discovered, when your speech goes against the grain of those who govern you don’t expect the usual rules to apply.
‘If you offered to let me off this time on condition I am not any longer to speak my mind… I should say to you, Men of Athens, I shall obey the Gods rather than you.’
Socrates was sentenced to death for criticism of the Athenian democratic state in his teachings, which allegedly resulted in two of his pupils doing harm and destruction to the state.[2]
The simple truth is, freedom of speech only exists as long as the speech doesn’t contradict the proposed beliefs of those who control your society.
In 1633, Galileo also discovered that ‘freedom of speech’ was more an ideology than a given right.
He was dragged before the Roman Inquisition over his ‘fanatical’ claims that the earth was not motionless, nor was it the centre of the Universe.
Galileo believed based on significant scientific evidence that the Sun was the centre of the Universe and that the Earth revolved around it. Crazy talk indeed!
Threatened with physical torture, Galileo recanted.
But if the legend holds true, after being forced to state that he was wrong and the earth was motionless after all, he stated ‘….and yet it moves”’
“There are those who reason well, but they are greatly outnumbered by those who reason badly”
Censorship Today
We may not hear of dissenters being dragged before the courts begging for their lives over something they said in the 21st century, well not in the western hemisphere at least; but the methods being used now are far more efficient and destructive to society.
Information has been monopolized by a small handful of silicon valley mega corporations. Facebook, Twitter and Google between them own the majority of the information feeds being delivered to the global population.
This monopoly on information has enabled the most efficient information control system the World has ever seen.
We now live in a World where a single word can be ‘flagged up’ to these mega corporations by a carefully crafted and ever changing algorithm in real time.
We have seen this happen repeatedly in the past couple years, and even more so since the Coronavirus pandemic.
The pandemic has taken censorship to frightening new levels, shutting down anything that contradicts the accepted mainstream narrative.
We saw David Icke’s[2] entire YouTube channel shutdown simply because he questioned the Coronavirus narrative and made a suggested association between health issues and 5G technology.
Whether this has any scientific credibility is beside the point, free and open discussion is paramount for any healthy society.
YouTube is literally saying that they cannot trust you to make decisions for yourself about information you hear, therefore they will limit the information available to a narrative of their choosing.
We saw the same with the recent Frontline Doctors summit[3], multiple Doctors got together to get information out there about treatments for Covid-19 that were being intentionally hidden from the public.
They referenced the Malaria drug, Hydroxychloroquine, which the mainstream media, the mainstream scientific community and much of the Worlds political elite have campaigned to demonize. They saw their video and any reference to their video removed from Facebook, Twitter and YouTube overnight.
This ability to shut down speech in minutes is very dangerous and should not be underestimated. If your argument is that these are private companies and therefore have the right to do whatever they please, then you don’t understand these companies at all.
They are in bed with the Government; they are little more than a propaganda arm of the state.
Please try to stop relying on the big three for your online activities, they do not have your best interests in mind, they do not want to protect you – they are protecting themselves and their state overlords.
Alternatives
- Search: Duckduckgo
- Social: Flote.app | Pocketnet.app | Minds.com
- Video: Lbry.tv
- Browser: Brave.com