Censorship
Censorship refers to concerted efforts by the government to muzzle, silence and altogether eradicate any speech that runs afoul of the government’s own approved narrative.
The face of technofascism itself, Mark Zuckerberg, has come out recently stating he was pressured by the Biden administration to censor content but swears next time he will resist such pressure.
Meta’s CEO aired his grievances in a letter Monday to the House Judiciary Committee in response to its investigation into content moderation on online platforms.
In the letter Zuckerberg detailed how senior administration officials leaned on the company to censor certain posts about Covid-19, including humour and satire, and “expressed a lot of frustration” when the social media platform resisted.
Pressure to censor came from the admin as President Biden said in July of 2021 that social media platforms are “killing people” with misinformation surrounding the pandemic. Also US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said at the time that misinformation posted on social media was a “serious threat to public health.”
Zuckerberg in the letter also said the FBI warned his company about potential Russian disinformation around Hunter Biden and the Ukrainian firm Burisma affecting the 2020 election.
Zuckerberg expressed regret for Meta’s downplaying of content related to coverage by the New York Post about Hunter Biden ahead of the 2020 election that the FBI warned may have been rooted in a Russian disinformation operation. Writing;
It’s since been made clear that the reporting was not Russian disinformation, and in retrospect, we shouldn’t have demoted the story.
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Lawsuits
Unfortunately this letter comes in the wake of a series of unsuccessful lawsuits against Meta.
Children’s Health Defense v. Meta, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed a lawsuit brought by Children’s Health Defense against Meta Platforms for restricting CHD’s posts, fundraising, and advertising on Facebook.
combined cases of NetChoice v. Paxton and Moody v. NetChoice, the U.S. Supreme Court avoided ruling on whether the states could pass laws to prohibit censorship by Big Tech companies on social media platforms such as Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube.
Murthy v. Missouri, the Supreme Court sidestepped a challenge to the federal government’s efforts to coerce social media companies into censoring users’ First Amendment expression.
The digital space is now the free commons and technically we should have the freedom to speech. However, anyone aware during the Covid19 plandemic saw how contrarian views were dealt with.
In a case bought by the Attorney generals in Louisiana and Missouri alleging that the federal government overstepped in its efforts to convince social media companies to address postings that could result in vaccine hesitancy during the COVID-19 pandemic or affect elections. Judge Terry Doughty said;
evidence produced thus far depicts an almost dystopian scenario. During the COVID-19 pandemic, a period perhaps best characterized by widespread doubt and uncertainty, the United States Government seems to have assumed a role similar to an Orwellian ‘Ministry of Truth’.
The government is not protecting us from “dangerous” disinformation campaigns. It is laying the groundwork to insulate us from “dangerous” ideas that might cause us to think for ourselves and, in so doing, challenge the power elite’s stranglehold over our lives.
First, they go after extremists and hate speech. Then they pursue those spouting what is deemed “disinformation”. Then they develop a strategy for silencing all who speak what is broadly determined to be “misinformation”. Finally, anyone who has anything critical to say. This is the historical path of such dystopias.
What’s next thought crimes?
