Free-Speech Monopoly - The Game Is Rigged

Nothing earth shatter with this particular article however for those who wonder or are more of the conspiracy type it does make some good points IMO.

It has always be a eyesore and at times a regret (I have fallen for it myself) on how MSN can convict someone (or thing) in the court of public opinion using fake news/innuendo and outlandish lies to get us (the herd) headed in a desired direction. Iraq is a classic example with all the propaganda as was the Bay of Tonkin and the Vietnam war....

In early America many cities had ‘town squares’ in which citizens could stand on soapboxes and shout out various messages. Our First Amendment protects such speech.

The Internet is today’s town square. The soapboxes are social media.

The Deep State and the left are intertwined with Silicon Valley. The CIA helped Google and Facebook get started. Why? To make it easier to spy on people. Over time, millions gravitated toward Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. Conservative and Libertarian voices became very strong and that alarmed the Deep State. So they began demonetizing conservatives. Then they shadow-banned them. Now they are deleting them outright.

www.zerohedge.com...

I guess it makes life easier if there is only one voice .... 1984 seems to have been more prophetic than most ever realized, No?

Censorship is what China does, and companies like Facebook and Apple are eager to please the communist oligarchs. The Deep State wants what President Xi enjoys - a rigged Internet that does not allow dissent or criticism of the political elite. Right now, even Winnie the Pooh is being banned in China. Why? Because Xi opponents in China were using the cartoon bear as a ‘meme’ to criticize their leader.

Anyway just something to think about the next time you hear of banning certain speech or books. As far as I am concerned it should be up to the individual to decide who and what they want to listen to ... I never was into watching the televangelist but others certainly were..their right, their time, and their beliefs should not be infringed by me saying do not watch, do not listen, do not waste your time...

I've been saying this for a while now...The Left is only for Free Speech when you're saying what they want to hear.

It's plain to see that one entire 'side' of the political spectrum absolutely supports shutting down public speakers, rioting at schools to silence speakers with a different opinion than cnn, openly harrassing public citizens who wear clothing they don't agree with or have views different than Stephen Colbert. Even their political leaders openly calling for harrassment of opposition members. Publicly supporting rioters and fascist, brownshirt organisations. Colluding with media and social media giants to block the eyes and ears of their DWINDLING support base.

To these people, silencing free speech is something to be celebrated.

"Think how we think or we'll shout you down, marginalise you and silence you". The very definition of fascism.

originally posted by: DAVID64
I've been saying this for a while now...The Left is only for Free Speech when you're saying what they want to hear.

I like you but this very statement is a big problem. The very same thing can be said for the right. C’mon dude you should know this. All sides are to blame for this very obvious deflection and propaganda technique.

a reply to: 727Sky

In the age of the Corporate Dictatorship. Free speech is dead.

a reply to: 727Sky

what utter bollox :

The Internet is today’s town square. The soapboxes are social media.

this crap is what heppens when people cannot discern the difference between :

free speech

VS

free publication

a reply to: ignorant_ape

this crap is what heppens when people cannot discern the difference between : free speech VS free publication

That is just dicing hairs. The truth of the matter is free speech is under threat. The links between social media and government are undeniable. The lines a revolving door policly have been blurred to a point of non existence.

This is the corporate dictatorship I mentioned above. It is very real. Your free speech is under attack. Do something about it.

originally posted by: DAVID64
I've been saying this for a while now...The Left is only for Free Speech when you're saying what they want to hear.

Forget about the left and right for a minute. See past the illusion of choice. Some elements of government change whilst others remain a constant. It is not a left or right issue. Who is calling the shots..

originally posted by: DAVID64
I've been saying this for a while now...The Left is only for Free Speech when you're saying what they want to hear.

Doesn't that pretty much apply to anyone who has any capacity for making censorship happen?

It's this simple. If censorship CAN happen, it WILL happen, regardless of who is in control. If it cannot happen, it will be impossible to figure out what the hell is going on anyway because everyone will have their own version of what's happening and it will be impossible to know who's telling the truth (or even if anyone is).

The whole thing is coming to a point of destabilization where something has to give. I will be surprised if the internet still exists in ten years.

a reply to: 727Sky

You might have had a point if social media platforms were run by the state.

But the last time I checked they are run by private corporations. So comparing them with soapboxes is as stupid as it gets.

Deny ignorance...

a reply to: 727Sky

Not to minimize your excellent points regarding free speech, but this is about much more than free speech. Or perhaps it's more correct to say it's about how our free speech is compromised, and that is done via corporatism... crony capitalism. Because, as you already noted in the OP, these tech giants didn't get where they are all by their lonesome. They had major help from OUR government and therefore OUR tax dollars.

Technically speaking, only government is forbidden from infringing on our free speech. But private corporations can do as they will. So the government props up these "private" corporations to exploit for their purposes... including fake news and burying stories and "herding" folks into echo chambers. It's a means for widespread dissemination of government propaganda.

Incorporation laws must be reformed to serve the best interests of the people/nation as a whole -- NOT to exploit and extort the people/nation via fictional legal entities with special entitlements and privileges. And that's exactly what corporations are. The fix is simple: ALL corporations must respect and adhere to the same principles as the government. If government cannot censor free speech -- and they cannot -- then neither can a corporation. If government must serve everyone equally regardless of race, creed or color -- and they must -- then so too must corporations.

If folks don't want to play nice, then they don't get to incorporate and get all those special privileges and entitlements from the taxpayer.

The real problem, in this fake censorship uproar, is an error, that people have conflated free speech with free speech on some private company's platform, on some private company's dime. Nobody has a right to be on Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, etc, just as you have no right to be published in the LA or NY Times. Everybody has all the right to pay for their own publishing, URL, server and bandwidth, if you want to be an extremist or raving nutter all day and night long. Also, this idea that, if it's in the Alt News, it's got to be true, as opposed to the MSM: the Alt News is the venue filled with the most absurd fake news and nutters, saying all sorts of things, with zero evidence. It's quite a valid view, that some company doesn't want their platform trashed-up by nutters and attention whores, or extremists of any stripe. The First Amendment is on your own dime, and, otherwise, when you're in somebody else's house, you obey their rules.

a reply to: Scrutinizing
That's very true and not more so close to home. If you all haven't noticed here on ATS if you say or infer the wrong things you WILL be censored.
But in defence the biggest problem is just WHO decides who is a nutter, who is an attention whore, who is an extremist.
As the saying goes one man's rebel is another mans freedom fighter.

www.activistpost.com...

That said, the current social/political/media climate in America today is likely to bring about the rise of a far more insidious and dangerous type of censorship: self-censorship.

The Cambridge Dictionary defines self-censorship as:

control of what you say or do in order to avoid annoying or offending others, but without being told officially that such control is necessary:

Wikipedia defines it as:

Self-censorship is the act of censoring or classifying one’s own discourse. This is done out of fear of, or deference to, the sensibilities or preferences (actual or perceived) of others and without overt pressure from any specific party or institution of authority. ~Wikipedia

In other words, self-censorship is voluntarily silencing one’s self out of fear of unofficial reprisal. That reprisal can come in many forms, soft and hard, but at its most fundamental level it involves the fear of what others will think of you or say to you if they don’t like what they hear.

This form of censorship is already taking hold and is the result of the fear that individuals have of upsetting the mobs and virtue-signaling hordes of self-righteous personalities. It is the fear that anything you say can and will be used against you in the court of public opinion and political correctness. That just by voicing your opinion on something, you risk being attacked by black-clad and megaphone-wielding tyrants, physically removed from restaurants or harassed when conducting the ordinary affairs of life.

A game of chess where these are but the first moves. The end game is several moves forward. youtu.be...



Yes private companies ... who give millions of dollars to politicians... who have input from the very same politicians.. Wonder how many times there was a hint of do what we say or we will suggest the IRS look at you books..?

Nigel Farage On Fox News About Social Media Banning Conservative Views
youtu.be...

a reply to: 727Sky


The game is rigged.

Free speech is dead.

Hell, I've been arguing for it for quite some time and the resistance I get from members here is just a small indication of what the rest of the world thinks about it.

People want censorship. We've been socially engineered to accept censorship, it is even applauded now.

Welcome to the future folks

You once had no one really having issue with what you said

To having a few,

To having the Internet, socially able to tell you what you can and cannot say, or else, you loose your job and the rest that follows,

so 1st, be financially secure for life, then you can be free to speak your mind.

Until you're banned from twitter and facebook,

But soon, if not already in some forms of the above statement, Corporations will be telling you what you can and cannot say, or else you don't get to buy through them anymore or ship, or electronically transfer.

Freespeach? Eh, I'd be worried about freedom of opinion, individuality, creative expressions,

You know, what is ok today, most likely will be someone's warpath tomorrow,

No thanks, just, no thanks...

a reply to: Scrutinizing

Not exactly. The problem is that the big tech companies want to have things two ways.

On the one hand, they promote themselves as a platform where anyone can come and be welcome, and they have always promoted themselves in this way to build up their customer base. People have been invited to use their platform to self-publish.

Now, in order to justify what they do in the name of control, the same platforms are now calling themselves publishers as if they've always been publications who always keep a tightly controlled house group of content producers, something theses platforms have never done and never advertised doing.

If the platforms were the latter, then they were never about being free and open to anyone who wants to use the platform, and it was false advertising on the part of the tech companies to claim they were available as such. And if they are simply a platform made available for users, then they can't really hide behind provisions of legal code that are meant to protect publishers because they aren't publishers in the traditional sense.

political correctness,...social media censorship... the government’s free speech suppression just keeps on growing.

originally posted by: DBCowboy
a reply to: 727Sky


The game is rigged.

Free speech is dead.

Hell, I've been arguing for it for quite some time and the resistance I get from members here is just a small indication of what the rest of the world thinks about it.

People want censorship. We've been socially engineered to accept censorship, it is even applauded now.

When you put all these terms together – national security, war on terror, terrorism, hate speech and fake news ,politically incorrect, it pretty much allows the government to do anything it wants to you, anytime, anywhere, including searching you, robbing you, jailing you and killing you!