RAINER SHEA—Is it any wonder that during his 2017 Senate hearing, former FBI agent and pro-censorship fanatic Clint Watts used language which perfectly reflected what I just described? He said that “Civil wars don’t start with gunshots, they start with words. America’s war with itself has already begun. We all must act now on the social media battlefield to quell information rebellions that can quickly lead to violent confrontations and easily transform us into the Divided States of America.” Because of this risk inherent within a free and open internet, concluded Watts, the government must work with Big Tech to “silence” sources of “rebellion.”
His paranoia was entirely valid, because as someone who was radicalized towards Marxism-Leninism after years of reading debunkery of U.S. regime change narratives, I can say that actors like me are indeed created through letting people access information which goes against what the government says.