Have you noticed how there are no longer much super-mind geniuses alive? Is it maybe because our generations have become dumber, or because the information is being hidden from us by media and government?
If you picked up the latter you are mostly likely into something. As you may have already noticed internet censorship is on the rise. This is not something that might be implemented in the near future. Censorship is happening right now in several ways.
Governments like the Chinese and the UK have been taking actions to regulate the information that is flowing freely on the internet and have publicly expressed that it’s for our benefit. They claim that such regulations will make the internet “safer,” but how exactly? And what are their motivations?
Seeing this reminds me that restriction to knowledge has been for a long time a favorite tool for authoritarian rulers to control their population; and throughout the ages this has been used by the ruling class to organize the society more easily.
Nearly all authoritarian and fascists governments have threatened freedom of speech in one way or another to emphasize their power.
Or easily put, ignorant people are more easily manipulated. Especially when the government directs the media and people trust them blindly to the point they have the ultimate say on what is true or not.
Sounds familiar?
This is exactly what is happening throughout the globe with media companies and internet platforms. Situations like this are directly threatening the free spread of ideas. And, since all censorship ever does is make people ignorant, it is essentially opening space for a more controlled society in which nobody is allowed to think for themselves.
Impact on Social Media
It’s hard to tell to what extent politicians are willing to take internet censorship, but there’s evidence that social media is one space where this is already happening on a large scale.
Many Youtube channels have already been demonetized due to the fact that the content they share on their videos goes against what the platform considers as good information.
Facebook has also implemented complex algorithms that prevent certain information to be seen by people and has deliberately deleted posts that they consider are not appropriate. Just to name a couple of examples.
The censorship that social media platforms have been able to get away with is directly related to the very nature of these platforms. The most popular social media sites are centralized platforms, and as such they have the power to omit and filter exactly what is being published on the site.
This means that they pretty much own all the content that appears on the site and have the right to censor whatever they want.
However, I don’t blame them for having this power. If they want to structure their platform in such a way it’s their right to do so. In fact, we agreed to that when we started using their site in the first place.
Decentralization Of Social Media
Bitcoin showed what decentralization could achieve in the financial system. Now social media platforms are showing how the same principle can tackle the centralized paradigms that exist in media today.
Onename Global (onG) is an example of this. They are a platform that is deeply compromised with standing up to censorship and maintaining the freedom of speech in the internet.
They are planning to do so simply by encouraging content creators to tell the truth. onG social gives the power to the people so they can upvote true content and downvote lies. In this way, there is no one man who can decide what is true or not, or which content is moral or offensive.
Unlike Facebook, whose mission is to hide the independent thinkers, onG social features an algorithm that enables the users to rate the content so that people who contribute with the best value to the platform are the ones who get the most visibility.
The rating that the users give to the content also produces rewards for the creator, as he is paid with cryptocurrency for the content that he shares on the platform. It is a great incentive for users to share true valuable information, instead of propaganda and lies that have flooded conventional media platforms.
On the contrary, users who are knowingly spreading lies and misinformation will be tagged as such by the same community, but never censored.
These makes the perfect environment for people to share and explore the vast array of ideas they want to put out and express without the fear of being shut down by any regulation or algorithm.
onG intends that social media works again the way it’s meant to. By having a decentralized platform that doesn’t comply with the status quo, everybody is allowed to share whatever they want while the community decides if specific content is deceiving or not.
Power To The People
Users must be aware of the kind of platform they use to publish their content and by what morals it stands by.
It is very clear that the most popular social media sites have become corrupted and don’t bother making it hard for truthful and honest content creators to spread their messages. They got drunk on their popularity but forgot that popularity was given to them by their very own users.
So people like me and probably you, who are concerned about the internet being censored, and who value free speech must know that most media sites don’t give a damn about these values and would rather sell their souls for control over the free flow of information.
It is our task then, as individuals who value free speech, to be on the lookout for platforms that have values like our own and that stand by them.
Sources:
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/aug/28/algorithms-google-facebook-censorship
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-07-11/china-may-be-raising-the-great-firewall-too-high
Images (Direct Link): 1, 2, 3, 4