Using government to keep the little guy down
By Scott Tibbs, April 9, 2019
We should not be fooled: Efforts to control speech and regulate social media are not about eliminating "hate speech" or making sure people are safe. The decision by Big Tech to endorse more regulations is not because they want to stop "hate speech" or make people safe either: This is about crushing competition and ensuring continued dominance for the biggest platform.
Facebook executive Mark Zuckerberg said:
It's impossible to remove all harmful content from the internet, but when people use dozens of different sharing services — all with their own policies and processes — we need a more standardized approach."Yes, of course we need a "standardized approach." That benefits existing big players and stifles those who want to do things another way. This is not new with Big Tech, of course. We have seen existing economic powers try to crush the new thing to stay on top. People who made horse-drawn carriages hated the automobile. Taxi drivers hate rise-sharing apps like Uber and Lyft. It goes on forever.
Authoritarians do not care about "hate speech" either. The push for regulation of "hate speech" is an excuse to regulate opinions on political and social issues, by labeling the opinions "hateful." We saw this when Christiane Amanpour whined that the "lock her up" chants about Hillary Clinton should have been criminally prosecuted. People laughed about this being "dangerous," but make no mistake: "Danger" has always been the pretext for censorship. It has happened over and over throughout history.
We are seeing a populist revolt, with people saying we need to "drain the swamp" and cut off the power of the "deep state." The best way to do that is to categorically reject any effort by the establishment to censor political speech they do not like, which will be done by casting the widest net possible. We need to expose the establishment - authoritarians in government and big corporations protecting their own turf - as exactly what they are: The enemy of the people.
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