Concern For Social Media

For John, BLUF:  California House of Representative Member Devin Nunes is concerned about Big Tech and its throttling of the Internet, thus stiffling free speech.  Remember when the Internet was going to enhance free speech and political discourse?.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Social-ist Media

Here is the sub-headline:

Biden’s digital lackeys threaten to turn out the lights on our republic.

From American Mind, Rep Devin Nunes, 16 October 2020.

Here is the lede plus three:

Socialist regimes typically don’t excel at good government or economic stewardship, but they do tend to be experts at one thing—propaganda. Under regimes like the Soviet Union and countless other socialist monstrosities, citizens may not have been able to buy bread without waiting an entire day in line, but they could easily access a galaxy of reports via virtually any medium—print, TV, radio, billboards, schoolbooks, etc.—informing them of the glories of socialism in general and their own leaders in particular.

Americans do not have to wait in line to buy bread yet, but make no mistake: In America today, the socialist propaganda network is already in place.

The mainstream media has proven that Americans can no longer rely on them for unbiased news. Having always leaned left, reporters abandoned all pretense of objectivity following President Trump’s election, turning their outlets into unabashed organs of the anti-Trump movement and every associated leftwing cause. This was amply demonstrated by the years-long Russia collusion hoax, in which every mainstream outlet scrapped journalistic norms on sourcing, anonymity, fact-checking, and other longstanding practices in order to advance the false narrative that Trump colluded with Russians to hack the 2016 election.

Increasingly, however, Americans are no longer accessing news reports through physical newspapers and magazines but through social media. In theory, social media is a democratizing force—people no longer need to own a media company or write for the New York Times in order to reach a potential audience of millions. But it’s now clear that the tech giants who control the digital infrastructure are not providing a neutral platform for all points of view. Instead, they have weaponized their platforms to help the Democrats.

Yes, this is from a month ago, but it is still relevant.

I think the signal that we are in real trouble will be when blog sites, such as this one, start to be shut down.  Then EMail will be checked and censored.  At that point we will be in serious trouble.  On the other hand, it may never come to that.  The Government, and Big Tech will, individually or collectively, realize that they are killing the Goose that laid the Golden Egg.  That is if they are long term thinkers.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff