The social media landscape has been shifting under modern fascist policy in the USA.
With the loss of net neutrality we see the erosion of citizens rights quickening, even as the people are doing what they can to speak out against the corporatization of speech.
YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and the other social media giants are working in conjunction with the governments of the world they are actively working to keep the press corporate controlled, and any messaging in alignment with so called National Security Interests.
What this means in real world terms is that our ability to communicate controversial topics will be subdued. The willingness of these tech giants to enforce censorship on behalf of government agencies is a testament to the importance of developing independent forms of social networking, outside of the gatekeeper algorithms which cause so much separation.There are a few terms which have emerged with the rise of censorship on social media, terms you may not have known of if you haven’t been reading up on media censorship.
- Shadow ban
Shadowban refers to the use of isolating algorithms, these algorithms see certain types of content as being in violation of the terms of service. By declaring the content in violation of the terms of service it allows the tech giants to hide the content without notifying the user that their content has been hidden. These hidden bans become obvious when our readers are not responding to posts on our profiles. Some posts receive many likes and shares, you know fluffy kitten posts, and posts about our plates of food. But our posts about insurrection and social inequity are hidden.
The use of shadow bans puts a user in a dark place, it creates a false sense of isolation and prevents the people who would want to see the information from responding appropriately to the changing social landscape. This limiting of the public’s ability to see leads to further censorship and a diminishing of our ability to interact meaningfully.
- Direct Censorship
This happens when a post is removed directly. The post may have been reported by another user, or the system may have flagged it through the use of artificial intelligence. When direct censorship happens content can be destroyed and accounts can be suspended. These sorts of actions lead to a landscape of fear on behalf of the social media users. We are afraid that we could lose our contacts and content if we post images or words which are controversial.
Even data which isn’t controversial can be flagged if it’s shared too often or if there are too many reactions. This leads to content being hidden as spam. There are some systems which allow us to personally filter the so called spam folder, but other systems straight destroy posts which they deem to be spam. This was what happened during Occupy Wall Street when Yahoo destroyed emails which contained the words “occupy” or “zuccoti” this prevented people from effectively organizing.
YouTube was also caught out for direct censorship when they prevent any LGBTQ videos from being posted, including the video which was posted by Human Rights Watch. In their video Human Rights Watch was speaking out against a discriminatory law in Utah. Ironically the video about the dangers of censorship was censored.
Meanwhile direct racist content and pedophelia are largely ignored. The Proud Boys and the rest of the Fascists of the so called “alt-right” are legitimized and protected in their blatant calls for ethnic cleansing and child rape. We literally have a network of systems which protect the rising fascist state.
Edward Snowden once suggested that as concerned individuals we need to create our own social media sites and our own cell phone networks.
The terms of service agreements which we are subjected to as part of using platforms we are accustomed to diminish our potential freedom. We sign away our right to due process and our right to privacy over and over again as a part of using the modern internet. This ability of tech giants to hide our speech and turn over data to government investigations creates a situation where our free speech is self censored out of fear. We know that what we say could at some point be used against us, and this creates a landscape of fear in which real free speech is only an illusion.Thanks for reading this far!
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