The way we glean our information has changed, and changed big time. No longer relying on the daily/weekly news sources, we get what we want to know by googling for it or, worse yet, what pops up on our social media feeds and smart phone.
Free speech is being silenced by the gate keepers. Alphabet (the holding company of Google and Youtube), Facebook, Twitter et el, have become the masters of OUR universe. They wielded tremendous power and have put their boot against the throat of speech they deem unfit and that does not supposedly meet their community standards.
Yet who sets those standards? The Southern Poverty Law Center for one, which is an avowed leftist organization. And they also regulate it by their own internal standards. The latest of those targeted is InfoWars, which has recently been banished from the Youtube platform.
Now I’m not defending that website, which I hardly ever read. It contains content that I don’t readily agree with and, at times, find offensive. Yet, I am going to defend their right to say what they want. Truthfully I find Antifa absolutely offensive. They not only advocate violence, they carry it out and infringe on others people’s rights to assemble and to rally. Yet you will find them across every platform.
Social Media and search engines are private enterprises with reaches that were unthinkable in the time of our founding. I am not advocating they be regulated. That is the very slippery slope of censorship taken from private enterprise to government control. However, their platforms need to be abandoned and to let market forces dictate their existence.
When the gate keepers close access to one side sure enough the other is next. We will be fed the pabulum of mindlessness. Accepting as truth what is on Wikipedia, which can be edited by anyone and which comes up near the top of most Google searches as the got to for facts. We will muzzle ourselves and our future if we bow down to the tech giants. Leave the platforms, find another way to search, make your own choice and don’t be led by any gate keepers. They will come for you next.
Tyrants always do.
