Social Media Is A Threat To Free Speech
We are living in a Social Media Madness world
By Rod Eccles
Social Media is here to stay. It is ingrained into our society. Once thought to be the ultimate in Free Speech but now reality has sunk in. And the reality is that Social Media is the biggest threat to Free Speech since Communism was invented.
The very thing that was meant to expand free speech to the masses around the world is now actually the biggest enemy of free speech. Many of us did not see this coming. After all, it was the Internet and that was a Wild West sort of thing. The Internet could not be tamed. It could not be limited. It could not be policed.
You might think that governments around the world finally corralled the Internet. Well, you would be wrong.
It was big, GIANT tech that did it. And along with the likes of Google, Yahoo, MSN, and Apple you had the newly minted big, GIANT socials such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and now TikTok. With the exception of TikTok, they all colluded to stifle, limit, and even ban free speech.
It’s so bad now that you can be banned for days, weeks, months, or even forever from platforms for simply discussing historical facts. Not joking.
It recently happened to me. You see, I was discussing the historical happenings of World War 1, formally known as the Great War. I simply replied to someone by saying “we bombed their oil production facilities”. Facebook decided that such a comment went against their Terms of Service and put me in a two-day lockdown.
There is no real way to appeal such a stupid and arbitrary decision even though Facebook claims there is. Almost nobody ever gets a decision overturned when they challenge it.
You may say this is a One Off. Well, you would be wrong. You see, Elon Musk recently purchased one of these giant socials. Twitter. And after taking over, Elon found all kinds of real evidence of how Twitter and other Socials colluded with the government to relinquish your free speech.
The interesting thing is, nobody, and I mean NOBODY is even trying to dispute the evidence Elon has released. Instead, the Socials, the government, and even our mass media are doing their very best to ignore what Elon is releasing.
I know of people who have been banned from even Pintrest. Yes, the picture board social where folks put up all kinds of pictures for stuff they like or want or wish for. It’s basically an online dream board. But even as free-thinking as dreams can be and are, they can get you into trouble with those bent on restricting or eliminating your free speech.
The reality is, the people running these sites are only interested in those with “right thinking”. I don’t mean thoughts and speech that would be of those on the right side of the political aisle, but the thoughts and speech who think “right”. And those thoughts are only those in which these monsters at the Socials and Big Tech agree with.
If they disagree with you, then they label your thoughts as hate speech. Even if you have full-blown evidence or its an undisputed historical event. If they don’t like it, if they don’t like what you said if they don’t like HOW you said it, boom! Bang! You run afoul of their Terms of Service or some other rules they have set up.
Funny thing is, when you press and ask exactly how you blew it so you don’t repeat the same mistake again, they are silent. Which means you didn’t break some rule. You simply said something they didn’t like.
And that is the death of free speech. When those with the power can dictate to the rest of us what speech is allowed and which speech is not then you don’t have free speech.
Now isn’t it funny how the things we were told would open up society, free oppressed people around the world, and share vital information with every human in every nation is actually the tool that kills that dream?
Guess what, it’s not a dream. It’s a nightmare in reality.
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