Russia Is Being Used As The Excuse For Why Social Media Must Be Censored
My stepson was asking advice today on how he might make his blog sharable on Facebook. For the last four years he has been teaching overseas and thought he might share his experiences with people back home in the United States. I tried sharing him my experience with avoiding censorship, as well as what I learned from others who have far more experience than myself. I feel I have a good amount of experience in this. As I type this, my brother sits in Facebook jail.
I suggested he write a post telling people to click on a link he would put in the comments but he is unable to post a link to his blog AT ALL. The only answer he is able to get is that it is being blocked because it is suspected of being spam.
If you have ever tried to get a solution to a problem you are having with social media, you will understand there is nobody he can ask, no actual living human being he can appeal to or plead his case. Our means of communicating with others is in the hands of billionaires who have no interest in making our interactions meaningful and positive but profitable for themselves. They are worth tens and billions of dollars, but they will not spend any of it to establish any meaningful means of appeal for those who’ve been censored.
The same thing is happening on YouTube, where people I’ve been following for years are demonetized. The reasons given are vague to the point of being Kafkaesque. People who have been running channels for years, who literally have thousands of videos uploaded to YouTube, are told “We found that a significant portion of your channel is not in line with our YouTube Partner Program policies.” How does one react to such a statement other than scrub everything they’ve shared that could be even remotely controversial? And how can one ever hope to explore complex and contentious but important issues without any clear understanding of what can trigger demonetization or worse? I was listening to Graham Elwood, one of those demonetized, interviewing another vlogger whose channel was just permanently taken down. Again, no explicit reason given. At least in the case of Graham Elwood, he has a chance to appeal after two months, though to whom or what is unknown.
When my stepson asked me about how he might get around the block on his blog, I felt I had a good understanding of such things. A lot of my Facebook friends are in and out of jail, and a lot of them have figured out ways to avoid being banned or shadow-banned, because this is a reality for anyone willing to discuss politics beyond the narrow limits of Republican or Democrat talking points. What it mostly boils down to is if you speak out against war, you’re looking for trouble.
It wasn’t like this a few years back. This all came about in order to protect us from a few memes that allegedly affected the 2016 presidential election. Mark Zuckerberg originally laughed at the idea, but important political entities made sure he found interference. What he found was a $100,000 worth of ads, 60% of which were posted AFTER the election. Some were Facebook pages dedicated to puppies. Some were images of Jesus arm wrestling with Satan. Laughable. But the part where the Atlantic Council is given control over what you see on social media? That’s not so funny.
I listened to Jimmy Dore, Aaron Mate, and Ron Placone on Patron discussing the most ridiculous Russiagate articles. I’d share it with you if I wasn’t boycotting YouTube for the way they’re demonetizing and banning people. Perhaps someone would be kind enough to share a link to it in the comments.
Yes, there is a conspiracy to undermine our democracy and our ability to find common ground with our fellow human beings, but Russia is the patsy, not the prime mover in this conspiracy. Whatever discussion about what Russia did or did not do only serves to distract from what our own unelected power structures are currently doing. You must speak up about it now if you ever hope to have your voice heard again, because the noose of censorship is quickly being tightened around our necks. We live in a society that takes as absolute fact any pronouncement made by anonymous agents within secretive intelligence agencies while ruthlessly slandering anyone who questions such pronouncements. I cannot imagine a more frightening scenario, not even being subjected to images of Bernie Sanders in a speedo.