Posted on 01/12/2019 9:01:00 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Can you imagine how scary it would be to live in a world where your livelihood depended on having the ‘correct’ politics? It’s the sort of thing you might expect of totalitarian regimes – Baathist Iraq under Saddam Hussain; everywhere that has ever tried communism; increasingly, Xi’s panopticon China – but definitely not of any liberal democracy in the 21st century.
That dystopian future, though, may be much closer than you think. I only properly appreciated this recently when the podcast I’ve been doing for the last few years was mysteriously dropped by my regular employer, forcing me to seek funding sources from elsewhere.
If I were impeccably ‘progressive’, this would be a doddle. I could monetize my content through ads on YouTube, I could crowdfund donations through Patreon, I could promote my work with regular appearances on CNN. But if you’re snarky and irreverent and you won’t play the virtue-signaling game then your options are much more limited. Any deviation from the path of ‘woke’ righteousness – even just a misjudged joke or a remark taken out of context – can get you branded a ‘far right’ extremist and your audience won’t be allowed to pay you even if they want to.
This is what happened last month to the blogger/vidcaster Carl Benjamin – aka Sargon of Akkad – whose long-form meditations on everything from Brexit and feminism to Islam and video game politics have won him nearly 900,000 subscribers on YouTube. Benjamin’s primary funding source was Patreon, a website which enables donors to support projects they love with monthly contributions. But when one of Benjamin’s critics unearthed some audio of intemperate remarks he’d made in the course of an obscure interview where he’d been defending himself against neo-Nazis, Patreon de-platformed him for breaching its ‘terms of service.’
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.us ...
Only the public’s boycott of Communist entertainers was ever historically considered to be a “bad” blacklist.
And only because the pinko historians and journalists have a soft spot for Communism.
“well yes I had a membership but...”
“I have a good reason for putting an ad in the Daily Worker...”
“...in a downright despotism opposition is dangerous whether the despotism is official or whether it is unofficial...”
“A community rates low on the ‘Information’ scale when the press, radio, and other channels of communication are controlled by only a few people and when citizens have to accept what they are told.”
“See how a community trains its teachers”
“...these students are being taught to accept uncritically whatever they are told. Questions are not encouraged.”
“And if books and newspapers and the radio [and facebook and youtube and...] are officially controlled the people will read and accept exactly what the few in control want them to. Government censorship is one form of control. The newspaper that breaks the government censorship rule can be suspended. It is also possible for newspapers and other lines of communication to be controlled by private interests...”
Democracy (Encyclopedia Britannica film, circa 1946)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bx25aMPvbJo
“The newspapers of a real democracy meet these tests...”
Newspaper checks.
1. Balance of coverage
2. Disclosure of source
3. Competence of staff
So what were the intemperate remarks?
Is it something he should apologize for, is it more that that?
Just wondering.
bkmk
The organized Left’s war on free speech.
Aided and abetted by libertarians who bow down to censorship as long as it’s a corporation suppressing free speech.
The internet was suppose to be the great equalizer. What a huge disappointment.
It’s only going to be a level playing field if the giant media platforms are forced to treat all comers equally.
Basically a digital version of the very first regulatory law, the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887, which came about only after years of the railroads abusing their market dominance by selecting winners and losers among their customers.
In Orwell’s dystopian view of the future the government, “aka big brother,” controlled all news and changed history at will via the “Ministry of Truth.” Today we have the same with the media but it is not controlled by big brother but is an active partner with the far left which will become “big brother.” It is almost the same as in Orwell’s 1984.
Orwell warned us. We did not listen.
Odd fact about Orwell. He went to Spain and did fight for the Communists as a loyal adherent of that philosophy during the Spanish Revolution. In Spain he discovered what Marxism was and returned to Britain as a socialist libertarian. If his life was not cut short by tuberculosis I suspect he would have become a hard core conservative.
If one wants to understand Orwell, read his book “Letters from Catalonia.” This was really his philosophical change in life. From this came his great novel, “1984.”
the internet IS the great equalizer. Failing to innovate more than a few social platforms is the problem. How many times do we hear, facebook did this, twitter did that, patreon, GoFundMe, etcetcetc. Why aren’t there a hundred facebooks or twitters or patreons? Why do we settle? What happened to American ingenuity that they get the final word?
We graduate thousands of really smart IT guys every year from thousands of colleges. And then stagnate into the status quo, the acceptable, the convenient, the easy street.
why are you smart people letting others control all the market share when the market is screaming for alternatives? What one man can do another man can do. So do it.
It’s called fascism.
How complicated can it be for Conservatives to create their own digital platforms?
Why do we depend on Leftists to publish our political material, even though we know they want to destroy us?
“the internet IS the great equalizer. Failing to innovate more than a few social platforms is the problem. How many times do we hear, facebook did this, twitter did that, patreon, GoFundMe, etcetcetc. Why aren’t there a hundred facebooks or twitters or patreons? Why do we settle? What happened to American ingenuity that they get the final word?
We graduate thousands of really smart IT guys every year from thousands of colleges. And then stagnate into the status quo, the acceptable, the convenient, the easy street.
why are you smart people letting others control all the market share when the market is screaming for alternatives? What one man can do another man can do. So do it.”
*********************************************
So, dude, when are you planning to open up your Facebook competitor? Or do you plan to start with your Twitter competitor first?
Just kidding, of course. See comment 8 above. We’re facing problems today with the internet similar to the problems the nation faced with the railroads back in the day. Your not-well-thought-out libertarian “solution” won’t work. A well-thought-out legislative solution is needed for the internet problems just as a legislative solution was required for the railroads back in the day.
Platform is only one node of control. The real power lies with the credit card issuers/banks. Paypal sits between the actual platforms and the payment processors.
Someone actually did briefly set up an alternate payment site (I forget the name) and the credit card processors refused to let their system interact with it.
Our side is reduced to checks in the mail and at that point, the banks can institute the choke points if they wish.
Do we believe it is only coincidence that these major internet platforms are all controlled by leftists? That’s quite a coinkydink.
Creating your own platforms requires venture capital. I suspect that people trying to make conservative alternatives to established platforms will find themselves without funding.
There are things going on behind the scenes which we have not yet fully uncovered. The Deep State has spent decades inserting its tentacles into everything. Our current only hope is Donald Trump.
I call the corporate version Big Bother
So?....Not only would new platforms need to be created but entire banking systems , too. Doesn't sound easy to me.
However....Out of this leftist/communist run roadblock may emerge very innovative “work arounds”. Possibly Bitcoin?
Or their startups are bought out by the big media & tech companies.
I don't blame them, I'd probably do the same.
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