The following rebuttal to your piece is copy/pasted from my rebuttal to your piece which I posted there. Too many butts but there go I.
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I’ve enjoyed Icke for years. His realities are different from mine, but that’s ok.
Caitlin’s 2nd graph is misguided, methinks. -
This article is not about David Icke. I will say it again in italics for the especially dense: this article is not about David Icke. This article is about why we shouldn’t be okay with monopolistic billionaire-owned Silicon Valley tech giants with extensive ties to US government agencies controlling human communication.
Me — Call me crazy but I believe companies like Facebook and YouTube can ban whoever the hell they want. Most times it appears to be a good reason behind the ban. No better example than that pisspot shithead Alex Jones.
Jeffrey Field “Journalist Matt Taibbi recently wrote an excellent essay about the dangers inherent in the increased demand we’ve been seeing for more censorship and deplatforming during the coronavirus pandemic, correctly arguing that more authoritarian control over the ideas people are allowed to discuss is vastly more dangerous than the ideas themselves.”
I disagree. Ideas are way more dangerous than “control over the ideas people are allowed to discuss”.
Jeffrey Field ““Civil wars don’t start with gunshots, they start with words,” the representatives were told. “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.””
Wait! Didn’t Caitlin just say “that more authoritarian control over the ideas people are allowed to discuss is vastly more dangerous than the ideas themselves.” And then she says civil wars don’t start with gunshots, “they start with words.” Um… don’t the human use of words lead inevitably to ideas?
Jeffrey Field “Whenever anyone objects to censorship on these massive platforms they’re always told that those platforms are private companies who are free to do what they like on their private property, but how “private” is a corporation that is interlaced with government power with increasing inseparability? The reality is that in a corporatist system of government with vanishingly few meaningful distinctions between corporate power and state power, corporate censorship is state censorship.”
That’s what I was trying to say in my opening statement… these platforms “are private companies who are free to do what they like on their private property.”
Why don’t free speech laws apply to private companies like Twitter, Google, and Facebook? They are platforms for speech, yet they censor those whom they disagree with. Why?
Jeffrey Field “These Silicon Valley tech corporations have ensured their continued monopolistic dominance by demonstrating their willingness to collaborate with establishment power structures, so there are no platforms of anywhere near the same size and influence that people can move to if they don’t feel like letting government-tied plutocrats police what thoughts are permitted to enter into their minds. This has given this corporate-government alliance the ability to control the thoughts that people are allowed to share, discuss and think about in the same way totalitarian governments can, with the false mask of freedom plastered over it.”
Nobody controls my thoughts. If I proclaim that Trump should be slaughtered like some dumb ox, and Facebook bans me for it, that’s ok by me. I’ll find other ways to share my ideas. Like the man said, “There’s a million ways to get things done…” Free balloon to the first person to identify the author of that partial quote.
Jeffrey Field “If you examine which content is considered “authoritative”, you’ll find a bunch of outlets who have consistently lied to the world about war after war, who spent years promoting the baseless conspiracy theory that Vladimir Putin had infiltrated and secured control over the executive branch of the US government…”
Agree with the lies about this nation’s wars, beginning all the way back to the invasion of this continent by helmeted butchers. But, notice how Caitlin frames the Russian collusion story? “…that Vladimir Putin had infiltrated and secured control over the executive branch of the US government…” That’s typical over-the-top bullshit by the author. The fact is that Russia interfered with the 2016 election. To what extent is still under investigation.
Personal note… When I disagreed with Johnstone (on Medium.com) by suggesting that Russian interference was a strong possibility she called me an idiot and blocked me. Well well well, through some miracle whipped up by the Gods, I’m not blocked anymore so I’m going to drop this little turd in her lap right now. Course she’ll likely block me again but that’s her right cause her Medium blog is her own fucking property, capiche?
Strapping in… https://medium.com/.../why-you-should-oppose-the...
