Delusions of Freedom: Social Media, Unwashed Masses “Under the Control” of so FEW!
Commentary
Who writes “the Narrative”. “News” is not longer “facts”. It is a story, like Snow White and the Seven Senators…er…Dwarves.
As I have remarked before, if you google something of political import, say “Putin” . You will get zillions of articles presenting as a diseased demon, the expression of a genetically defective culture whose artists should be banned and its accomplishments ignored. These articles come from different sources but seem always to be paraphrasing each other, if not actually copying.
So what is the REAL source? It seems to be ONE. Is that “ONE” a person, an organization, or perhaps a THING?
Doesn’t matter really. This is the point in history when we are dehumanized. We are all “things”. That is what “civilization” does. To be “civilized” and live in a mass society, you must accept the “order” that comes with hierarchy. In any hierarchy, some are more human than others. Those few at the top are more important than the many at the bottom. “High” has value in a vertical society. And “low” little if any. As I write here:
Reposted from NEO, one of those sites banned on Meta.
Delusions of Freedom: Social Media, Unwashed Masses “Under the Control” of so FEW!
Never before in history have so many begun to realise that are they under the control of so few. The very foundations of what all they grew up believing are being shaken with each new revelation of how so many aspects of their very identify have been shaken, and how social media has become the gatekeeper of what it means to be human – going beyond freedom of speech to “freedom” of thought itself.
As Caitlin Johnstone writes, the real reason why many of us don’t live in a free society is so very- very much more pervasive than that … “we don’t live in a free society because people can’t even think freely” as they think “they already have it!””
But all that is changing!
Values and Rules
The purported “self-righteous” apparently want to dictate to us all the values and rules by which we are supposed to live, on the grounds that they are the role models: morally demanding and self-righteous, they dictate not only the rules but how we must think towards Russia and China.
You can’t get any stupider than that, but let’s not underestimate the ignorance of reality of our moralising “self-righteous” in politics, the media and on Facebook. For them vaccination is an act of “solidarity”…just like war missions – the main thing is “Values”. Unfortunately, it is taking far too long for “leftists” to realise that this is no longer just about public health, but democracy, fundamental rights and the rule of law.
Justice is still in hibernation, a complete failure. Why do we need such things as fundamental rights and international law, when we have our good, incontestable “Values”, i.e., Community Standards, and our quality media, which watch over and decide with their attitude and campaign and agenda based on hired gun journalism?
These self-righteous pseudo-leftists assign themselves as co-executors of the Corona State of Emergency and a totalitarian democracy of the (neo-) liberal mainstream! And then they present us with documentaries, such as Georgia’s future hangs on the outcome of the war in Ukraine, from the few apparently independent media outlets that claim that some Putin supporters might be sneaking in along with all the Russians who don’t want to be drafted into the special military operation in Ukraine.
They even have an AI site that can think for us, and write for us too, as journalists are no longer needed. For instance, my son sent me this: “I’m telling you this AI thing is neat. I had it write a dramatic dialogue between George Bush and George Washington.”
I gave it the instruction to write a dialogue between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. I gave it the prompt that Trump should proclaim that he’s the real president and that Biden should be in a nursing home.
It wrote this:
Donald Trump: I’m the real president of the United States! You, Joe Biden, should be in a nursing home.
Joe Biden: I’m sorry, Mr. Trump, but you are mistaken. I am the president of the United States, and you are not.
Trump: That’s fake news! I won the election, and you cheated to steal it from me.
Biden: I’m sorry, Mr. Trump, but that’s simply not true. The election was fair and accurate, and I was declared the winner.
Trump: Well, I’ll just have to prove it in court then. I’ll sue you and the entire Democratic Party for election fraud.
Biden: I’m sorry, Mr. Trump, but I don’t think that’s going to work. The courts have already heard your claims and have found them to be baseless. It’s time for you to accept the results of the election and move on.
Trump: Fine, I’ll just keep fighting then. I’ll never give up, and I’ll never admit defeat. I’m the real president, and you’re just a fake one
Biden: I’m sorry, Mr. Trump, but that’s just not reality. I am the president, and you need to accept that. Let’s work together for the good of the American people, rather than fighting and causing further division.”
Soon out of a job!
I was impressed, as this means there is no need for journalists anymore. Anyone observing events in the US since the last election, and the two characters concerned, could have written the same script and everyone would know who was talking to who.
This confirms that all along AI has been writing my articles, as per claims made by Ukrainian fact-checking sites. Of course, we must trust the fact-checkers and their knowledge of ever-changing community standards and fake news—and fake journalists too.
If the media is not bad enough, social media is the same. Elon Musk described in a Tweet how “Under pressure from hundreds of activist employees Twitter de-platforms Trump, a sitting US President, even though them themselves acknowledge that he didn’t violate the rules.”
The problem is, everyone wants to believe each influencer tells either total lies or total truth. Nobody is 100% either/or. You have to figure out what their underlying motives are.
It is clear now that Alex Jones’ “Inforwar” motives are purely self-serving—but so what? He does get many things right, InfoWars, A War on your Mind!
If telling the truth serves him on a given day, on that day he may be telling the truth. But if a false account or fictional story needs to be told the next day to serve his ends …that is what happens on that day; it is not 100% one way all the time.
Critical thinking is what people need to learn the most. Tucker Carlson, of Fox News, is also self-serving. Actually everyone is – it is a matter of degree. Jones merely has an extra helping of self-serving motives, and stands in a field by himself.
Twitter Files shames the Pentagon Papers
The Twitter Files shames the Pentagon Papers in showing collusion at the highest levels – and “how unelected people are able to determine the outcome of elections and exert so much power on democracy in the name of democracy.”
Trump may have been loudmouth, crude, and much of what he said was abrasive and lacked any semblance of being “woke, i.e., politically correct”, but he did not violate any Twitter terms of service, which includes the catchall term “community standards.”
What transpired, as noted in response by a dissenting voice at Twitter, was that censorship of the government, speaking of Trump himself, is not on the same level of censorship by the government, and thereby acceptable to protect democracy.
Journalist Bari Weiss describes in reviewing the internal discussion amongst employees how many “Twitter employees were upset that Trump hadn’t been banned earlier.” Hence employees closed ranks to demand their employer ban Trump, which is clearly shows that Twitter’s own policies were not followed.
Basically the majority of Twitter employees wanted to label Trump’s Tweet that he would not be attending the swearing in of Joe Biden as “incitement” without violating the rules, and Twitter needed to do the “right thing” by banning this account.
As Bari Weiss adds to her evaluation of the Twitter Ordeal, in the early afternoon of January 8 The Washington Post published an open letter from over 300 Twitter employees to CEO Jack Dorsey demanding Trump’s ban. “We must examine Twitter’s complicity in what President-Elect Biden has rightly termed insurrection.”
However, the Twitter staff assigned to evaluate tweets quickly concluded that Trump had not violated Twitter’s policies, and responded by saying, “I think we’d have a hard time saying this is incitement.”
Others weighing in on the in-house discussion helped to further reduced the implicit allegation that Trump was directly in involved in any attempt to overturn the election with violence, at least incitement to violence, by stating, “It is pretty clear he is saying the “American Patriots” are the ones who voted for him and not the terrorists (we can call them that, …?). Another staffer agreed: “Don’t see the incitement angle here.”
This line of discussion goes on and on between Twitter employees, and even “Twitter’s safety team decides that Trump’s 7:44 a.m EST tweet is also not in violation. They are unequivocal: “It is a clear no violation. It’s just to say that he is not attending the inauguration.” But others were arguing, even before the Jan 6 Committee: “For months I had been begging and anticipating and attempting to raise the reality that if nothing—if we made no intervention into what I saw occurring, people were going to die (Twitter No 17).”
To fully understand what happened to Trump, it is necessary to consider how Twitter deals with other heads of state and political leaders, including those of Iran, Nigeria, and Ethiopia. But in those cases it is OK, as they are the enemies at the gate and NOT the enemy within, as was Trump for those in elite power positions within governmental and civilian organisations.
In October 2021, Twitter allowed Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed to call on citizens to take up arms against the Tigray region. Twitter allowed the tweet to remain up, and did not ban the PM.
In June 2018, Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei tweeted, “#Israel is a cancerous tumor in the West Asian region that has to be removed and eradicated: it is possible and it will happen.” Twitter neither deleted the tweet nor banned the Ayatollah.
There are some Orthodox Jews I know who would agree with some of the rhetoric about Israel and have said much worse about the Zionist State. Sometimes Twitter would allow Tweets to remain but block the sender for the sake of public interest.
It will be interesting to learn, and I am sure it will be revealed in a subsequent investigation, the degree which agencies with three letters in their abbreviations were calling the shots – the CIA, FBI, DIA, etc. Not just in the case of Twitter-Trump, but social media postings in general.
Language is definitely not exact, and often in the eye of the beholder—it is heard and processed differently. Others such as Alex Jones, who are more akin to snake oil salesmen, may have come closer to inciting violence, which is in itself a judgment call.
A bit far-fetched
Twitter employees on the “enforcement team” suggested that Trump’s tweet may have violated Twitter’s Glorification of Violence policy if you interpret the phrase “American Patriots” as referring to the rioters. But that in itself is a bit far-fetched, at least from my standpoint dependency.
Many others have had social media accounts blocked and suspended. One crime was questioning if the UN Marine Corp has been turned into a fat camp for obese individuals, as recruitment must been tight in terms of long engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan. I guess the term “fat camp” was the key word that brought the wrath of God down, despite it being tongue-in-cheek.
Trump has some strange bedfellows as supporters. Merkel’s spokesperson called Twitter’s decision to ban Trump from its platform “problematic” and added that freedom of opinion is of “elementary significance.” Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny criticised the ban as “an unacceptable act of censorship.”
Journalist Bari Weiss sums up: “ultimately, the concerns about Twitter’s efforts to censor news about Hunter Biden’s laptop, blacklist disfavored views, and ban a president aren’t about the past choices of executives in a social media company—they’re about the power of a handful of people at a private company to influence the public discourse and democracy.”
Almost all of what has been branded as conspiracy theory in recent years is being confirmed as true in the real world. I am waiting with bated breath for what will be revealed next about COVID 19, Ukraine, Hunter Biden, China, and whether the gatekeepers of truth, advice and followers of the science—those who trust the science—and the so-called leadership will ever be held legally, [CRIMINALLY], financially and morally accountable.
Henry Kamens, columnist, expert on Central Asia and Caucasus, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”
Me…and YOU!
I am 76. Yes, I know—my profile picture, which is recent, looks younger. There is a reason my book is called "Ageing Young-- You're Never Too Old To Rock and Roll", the title given to me by David Bowie's lead guitarist and songwriter, Mark Pritchett.
In Canada, I have to carry a passport to prove I am over 60. You could do that too. If course, it helps to “on the spectrum”, like 90% of centenarians with the DrD4 R7 alleles gene. Sadly, the mortality rate for people with this gene set is LOWER on average, due to high-risk behaviors. BUT, if you survive to 70 and are healthy you can on …and on….
I write mostly about health issues, ageing successfully, cognitive issues like ASD—and… umm…genius. (Oh, I wish! But I will have to learn to tie my shoes first). I am pretty much “dys” everything. You will notice lots of typos. Dyslexia. Correct me please.
But recently, I have turned to geopolitical issues. People like me — and likely YOU— if you are subscriber—tend to see things differently. Not “I think therefore I am” But “I see therefore I think there I am”. First you must see with your own eyes.
So I gave up my Fulbright for PhD work at Harvard, which was about “thinking” not “seeing” to work as I was a stringer in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War. Then I was in Korea. And after that in Japan where I studied martial arts and Buddhism and did a lot of things: union organizer, writer, broadcaster, media analyst, beer and pizza. That’s the “spectrum” fer yah.
ASD is not one thing. There are a zillion variations. And in human evolution these were survival characteristics. People with them tend to “see”. They make connections. They are contrarian. They question. Is that YOU? Very likely you don’t consider yourself “left” or “right” or even in the “middle”. You are just you. Cognitively ambidextrous.
Most people are knockoffs. But each of YOU is an original.