It's so obvious by now that free speech online is being slowly dismantled piece-by-piece (and sold back to us as somehow 'for our own greater good') that denying it seems self-delusional at this point. The promise of shielding us from awful 'hate speech', harassment' and the 'trolls' of the Internet seems on its face a very desirable option, right?
Just yesterday, the latest multilateral push by a cohort of tech companies to heed consumer unrest was unveiled in the form of 'Hack Harassment'. What is Hack Harassment? Well....
Another white-guilt laden, pro-diversity, anti-free speech, money-burning initiative to promote the virtue of it's architects whilst curtailing the hard-won freedoms of expression intrinsic to Democracy as we know it on the basis of spurious statistics... then.
All you have to do is dig a little deeper to realize that this line of rhetoric is just going to be used to distort the perception of our real best interests again. We all think these people are speaking right at us, caring for us and intuiting our deepest wants and desires. We think government, especially ones found in the freest societies on earth have somehow worked passed the Hobbesian growing pains of old and are now proofed from such vagaries. 'Nineteen Eighty Four' is just a book, right? But, truthfully this is an old bait-and-switch that has surely passed into historical cliché by now, but only to experience a modern resurgence (albeit in another, more modern, form).
We all know and outwardly express the understanding that those in power always want to consolidate their positions any way they can, right? They go too far sometimes. They need shielding from self-interest. Power corrupts (yawn), absolute power etc etc (double-yawn). But, those cliches are there for a reason. We need checks-and-balances and the constitutional division of power as safeguards against naked ambition and corruption, right? These are not radical notions (yet). They are common sense. We have learned our lessons from our History. But, right now, people are sleepwalking blindly into the trap of forgetting them without even the slightest grip of these realities in tow. How are we forgetting these essential tenets?
Think about it: we are living in a post-Snowden/NSA world. A post-Snoopers Charter world. A UN Women anti-online bullying council on so-called 'Cyber Violence' promising 'safe spaces' (if you just hand over the reigns of control to faceless technocratic elites) is the last thing we need. And so is Hack Harassment. Why do we keep buying this bullshit?
These battles are being waged and won/lost right now. They are really scary viewing. And, it's not just that these people are trading off our freedoms in such a Faustian manner, it's also the political impetus that drives them that should worry you.
Look at how the police and media censored telling us what happened in Cologne on NYE. It took 4 days, in a world of 24-hour news cycles to learn of something that happened in full-view of the public, in a major European city centre, with thousands of witnesses, to be reported on with anything approaching broad honesty.
These journalists omitting truth are eschewing journalistic vigour in the name of serving the agenda passed down from the top of the pyramid. But the biggest way that cultural embedded behaviour is controlled is through the threat of censorship. Be it self-censorship, soft, censorship, corporate censorship, it all trickles down from those in power.
Yes, it is Political Correctness at play. Yes, it is 'Progressive Media' bias. Yes, it is 'narrative over facts' thinking, time and time again. But, not only is it enforced by the threat of career-shortening accusation, but, also, within the context of a society that has allowed big tech companies the room to dictate and control what we are and aren't allowed to say online.
Even Reddit was shadow-banning posts talking about Cologne before the story fully broke through. I mean, this isn't even novel stuff. The whole #GamerGate ordeal of 2014/15 was spurred on by these kinds of top-down controls. Discussion on open platforms is being chipped away by moderators. But, who is pulling their strings?
Mark Zuckerberg was recently found with his hand in the cookie jar in September promising Angela Merkel (on a 'hot mic') he would acquiesce to dealing with 'online racism' and 'xenophobic comments' criticizing her woeful policies in dealing with the Syrian refugee crisis. The Internet was awash with justifiable outrage at her misstep in handling the crises. Yet, the German version of Facebook was ready and willing to scrub any dissenting opinion found on their platform from History. The higher purpose reasoning and use of thought-terminating buzz-words was on full display:
“We are committed to working closely with the German government on this important issue,” Facebook spokeswoman Debbie Frost told Bloomberg. “We think the best solutions to dealing with people who make racist and xenophobic comments can be found when service providers, government and civil society all work together to address this common challenge.”
"Merkel previously pointed to Zuckerberg's firm in relation to the tension and violence.
She told the Rheinische Post earlier this month, 'When people stir up sedition on social networks using their real name, it's not only the state that has to act, but also Facebook as a company should do something against these paroles'."
This isn't 'nothing'. This is a big 'something'. This is the CEO of Facebook undermining free speech with a direct link to political coercion as its basis. You want a smoking gun? Well, this is it.
This seemingly innocuous exchange may seem like small fry. But, given the context it is huge.
You want the Internet to be like shopping in Waitrose don't you? Breezy aisles? No riff-raff? Polite company? There for your convenience alone? Everything is 'good for you' and helps save the environment (to borrow South Parks analogy with Whole Foods)?
Well, congratulations! The most powerful tool against tyranny (and the power to question it) has been entirely sterilized to suit the constrictive preferences of a private agenda. The Internet isn't Marks And Sparks. It isn't Disney Land. It's where ideas live and die. It's the Wild West, as Mister Metokur (formerly Internet Aristocrat) would say. And, it's why we like it. It's why it's the best thing for our Liberal Democracies health.
But, who really controls it? Well, if you can't speak freely, do you think it's you? "But, what if they only take away the speech I have no use for?" "As long as it's someone else's speech, who cares, right?" - Wrong! By pandering to the lowest common denominator of subjective offence, you give government a blank check to include almost anything it subjectively, self-servingly regards as 'transgressive' or from outside the boundaries of legalised speech. You make them unaccountable for their actions by removing every avenue in which to complain or feedback opinion countervailing their wrongdoing.
Ceding all your own autonomy to decide for yourself what does and doesn't constitute 'harassment', 'racism' or even what is best for you, to the entangled self-interests of social media corporations like Google, Apple and Microsoft and government committees in cahoots is tantamount to mass seppuku. But, that's happening. People don't seem to care as long as they have their 'safe space'. This isn't just a metaphor for conformity. It is conformity.
Twitter is censoring. Facebook is censoring. Right now! They may be views you don't agree with. They may be ones you do. But, Voltaire and his philosophies on this issue are not just quotes in memes or RT's any more - they are foundational pillars of our basic freedom. They are in our Democratic DNA. We'd do well to remind ourselves and others just what we lose in prostrating to big companies auctioning convenience for our freedom.
'Hack Harassment' is just the latest one. Whether they know it or not.
