If you’re not familiar with any of the writings of George Orwell, you should be. Because what he talked about in his books seemed terrifying and rather unrealistic at the time to many people who read his books; but today, it is far worse than anything that he had ever written about. Most people today are accustomed to the surveillance state and think that it’s just normal, and many believe that it’s just keeping them safe.
Just take a look at the TSA and Homeland security in the U.S. There was a bit of backlash when body scanners were introduced in airports in the U.S. after the events of 9/11 from American citizens. However, most people don’t make much of a fuss about them anymore; the scanners have been normalized in the culture and the sheeple adjusted. They will more than likely adjust to other security features that may be implemented to travel by air in the future.
Edward Snowden exposed the NSA was operating multiple global surveillance programs and collecting data on all Americans, which was illegal to do so, and many Americans still consider the whistleblower a traitor. Meanwhile on March 12th, 2013, James Clapper, who was the director of national intelligence, lied to congress, under oath, about the data collection program, and what happened to him? Nothing! He later stated the he “misspoke” about the incident as he tried to salvage his integrity. The result is that Edward Snowden is living in exile in Russia, wanted by the U.S. government, and James Clapper is retired and has never been charged with perjury, which he clearly committed. The fact that most Americans are apathetic towards Mr. Clapper speaks volumes about what state officials (authoritarians) can get away with. This doesn’t even include the series of documents named Vault 7 that was released on WikiLeaks that detail the capabilities of the CIA to perform electronic surveillance and cyber warfare against anyone, anywhere.
Three Square Market is a company in the U.S. that recently implanted rfid chips in their employees. This was voluntary and over half of the sheeple gladly lined up to take part. A company in Sweden had already done this and Three Square Market felt that they needed to be the first in the U.S. to give it a whirl. To see what I think about that, you can watch the video I made here.
The United Kingdom is another example of how mass surveillance is normalized. According to The Telegraph, there is 1 CCTV camera for every 11 citizens living in the UK, and of course, it is for their safety. Has that stopped any of the recent terrorist attacks that have happened this year in the UK? Nope! Therefore one should be able to see that the UK, the U.S.A., their intelligence agencies, other governments which consider themselves to be “democratic and free” around the world, and large multinational corporations, are really nothing more than authoritarians. And the book 1984 seems to be used by them as a guideline for how to control the population in these “so-called” free societies by these institutions and governments. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/10172298/One-surveillance-camera-for-every-11-people-in-Britain-says-CCTV-survey.html
And now you can clearly see what is happening now with “Surveillance Inc.” These are the large companies that you all know and use, or have used. Google, YouTube (part of Google), and Facebook are mammoth companies that control the flow of information. Many individuals around the world have been making money using YouTube as a platform and depend on that income stream from posting content on YouTube. Now, YouTube has an algorithm that will block people’s video from earning money from advertisers. This is said to only affect people who post controversial and offensive content etc. So who decides what is controversial and offensive? Facebook also has an algorithm that controls what people see on their news feeds and censor content as well. Again, who decides what is controversial and offensive, or “fake news?” Google also controls what people see and the access to information and websites by their own algorithm. They will put what they deem valuable first and punish websites that churn out information that may be unsettling to some people and so on, meanwhile collecting all sorts of information on its users that could be sold off to companies or given to the government if they want it. Without going into all of the specific details surrounding these corporate goliaths and how they manage and control information, the question should be why would you want to continue using these companies anymore?
That is where the block chain, the idea of decentralization, and sites like Steemit, Minds.com which is open source, and platforms that have yet to be created need to step it up. People need to stop using Google, Facebook, and YouTube, including myself. Yes, I still post to YouTube, but I don’t get many views at all as I have never really tried to promote my channel, to which I just started uploading videos a few months ago. I also never monetized my channel via running ads as I would never accept a penny from an advertiser as I am totally against advertising in its current form, but that is another topic for another time. And quite frankly, even if these companies backtrack in the interim, screw them. It’s time for people to start moving away from monopolistic corporations and to find and to create alternatives that allow true freedom of thought and expression regardless of other people’s or corporation’s delicate sensibilities.