SOCIAL MEDIA

CAITLIN JOHNSTONE—The emergence of the internet was met with hope and enthusiasm by people who understood that the plutocrat-controlled mainstream media were manipulating public opinion to manufacture consent for the status quo. The democratization of information-sharing was going to give rise to a public consciousness that is emancipated from the domination of plutocratic narrative control, thereby opening up the possibility of revolutionary change to our society’s corrupt systems.

GLENN GREENWALD—I do not believe that this bill will end up doing that, particularly because it empowers the largest media outlets such as The New York Times and MSNBC to dominate the process and because it does not even acknowledge, let alone address, the broader problems plaguing the news industry, including collapsing trust by the public.

GLENN GREENWALD—In a January Wall Street Journal op-ed, tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and Yale Law School’s constitutional scholar Jed Rubenfeld warned that Congress is rapidly approaching this constitutional boundary if it has not already transgressed it. “Using a combination of statutory inducements and regulatory threats,” the duo wrote, “Congress has co-opted Silicon Valley to do through the back door what government cannot directly accomplish under the Constitution.” Added: Deleted: That article compiled just a small sample of case law making clear that efforts to coerce private actors to censor speech implicate core First Amendment free speech guarantees.

Many people around the world, and now, the goverments of Russia, China and Iran, are also claiming that Covid-19 probably originated in a US bioweapons lab. This is a legitimate news, says Kim Iversen, a respected commetator on world affairs. The story was even carried by Western news services, but in her case Big Tech decided to censor her. Why? Apparently because she is not a dependable conduit for the official narative, which seeks to pin blame on foreign state actors, chiefly China.

PATRICE GREANVILLE—Craig “Pasta” Jardula and Fiorella Isabel are the unique members of The Convo Couch, one of YouTube’s most valuable leftist discussion programs. Pasta and Fiorella are serious journalists, the precise opposite of the overpaid disinformers crawling all over the fetid, gigantic carcass of a decomposing corporate media. They zero in on issues that matter—like election integrity, for one (which also happens to be a “signature” issue for them)—and they are irrepressible in pointing out what needs to be seen and heard in other areas of social and foreign policy. So now of course, as many expected, YouTube—a de facto fascistic organization— has arbitrarily demonitised them, knowing quite well that that simple move could spell the end or a huge dislocation for their journalistic career. Crippling (or worse, killing) this  program is a blow to the public’s ability to know the truth about a cluster of crises determining the course of history at this juncture.  We could say shame on YouTube, and your ilk, but that would be dishonest on our part. We know who we are dealing with, ruling class sociopahs trying to protect their power base by retaining control over their eroding and scandalously deceptive narrative. With people like that, shame has never played a role in deterring lowdown, underhanded behaviour. It’s what they are, what they do.