Yesterday ABC’s George Stephanopoulos asked Mark Zuckerberg about his company’s policy of censoring posts that are intended to organize protests of the government’s shelter-in-place orders. Zuckerberg said that Facebook takes down posts that it classifies as “harmful misinformation.” Then he said this: “At the same time, you know, it’s important that people can debate policies, can basically give their opinion on different things.”
Translation: You can debate policies and give your opinions on Facebook as much as you want just so long as you don’t step out of line and disagree with us about the government’s coronavirus response.
Before I go on, let me say this: Facebook is a private company. No one is forced to use it. No one even pays to use it. Mark Zuckerberg is entitled to censor the content of his social media platform to his heart’s content. This post is not a call for the government to “do something” about unfairness at Facebook.
Now to my point: Mark Zuckerberg and people like him are why Donald Trump is the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. There is a growing suspicion among many people that the “experts” really blew it when they stampeded government policy makers into shutting down half the economy and throwing tens of millions out of work. Yet Zuckerberg is so contemptuous of the point of view of these millions of people, he insists on stamping out their voice at least so far as he is able to through his control of the world’s largest social media platform.
I can think of no better example of the the progressive elite chattering classes’ contempt for common people. They say, “We are the experts; we know what’s best; you don’t need to even have a voice, much less a choice.” In 2016, Trump tapped into the masses’ discontent with this attitude and it propelled him into the White House. The chattering classes’ response: Double down.
In 2016, faced with a number of irrational reactions to US 2016, I set out to study and write about reasonable explanations (for example, Taking Polls Apart for Salvo) . It was largely wasted effort as far as the victims of Trump Derangement Syndrome were concerned, But discovering critical facts was a useful exercise for me.
Zuckerberg is running a virtual monopoly and can be quite the kingpin where progressive government rules. A pandemic is a gift because it gives him the right to shut people down, right or wrong. Don’t expect him to give it up easily.
In China, that sort of thing was a reliable way of spreading the virus. See Coronavirus in a world without trust. But dead people don’t matter. Live captive audiences do.
So it’s not even a question of what strategy is best for saving lives. What matters in both cases is what strategy enables progressives to get and keep control, irrespective of other outcomes.
I dislike facebook and Zuck as much as the next guy but shifting the blame is wrong.
Republicans are the reason Trump is on office. Trump was not the least bit censored when he told people who he was during the campaign. And they STILL voted for him.
Remember Trump mocking a handicapped reporter? Bankruptcies? Over 3,000 lawsuits? Was there any constraint about Trump saying he grabbed women by the p****?
Zuck and his tactics may be deplorable but our conservative Christian friends should not have voted for Trump.
Folks,
I think Plato has somewhat to say to us about where we are taking our civilisation:
The lessons of sound history were paid for with blood and tears. If we neglect, reject or dismiss them, we doom ourselves to pay the same coin, over and over again.
KF
David P. Remember Trump mocking a handicapped reporter?
There are several videos of Trump making the same kind of made up spastic motions. At different times, mocking the ideas of different persons. At the time he used this tactic mocking the reporter in question’s sayings, there was no type of affliction the reporter had that could be construed as spasms.
You should get informed on this instead of promoting falsehoods promoted by Trump hating media persons. This lying has large segments of the population likely to vote to keep them and their masters out of power.
If I were to use a political label I would describe myself as a classically liberal wannabe independent. I’ve never been much of a joiner so I prefer to steer clear of any kind of explicit political affiliation. As a classical liberal I have a strong belief in small d democratic style government, universal human rights and tolerance. I would actually prefer to refer to myself as just a liberal but unfortunately that term has been co-opted, at least in the U.S., by so-called progressives on the far left (as is the term progressive.)
However, these so-called liberals are anything but genuinely liberal. They don’t really believe in democracy as much as they know how to exploit it. For example, in January of this year there was an almost successful effort to impeach and remove the U.S. president from office completely along partisan lines. While the democrats could argue that acting constitutionally it’s hard to argue that their actions were the original intent of the constitution’s framers– not to mention they were trying disenfranchise 63 million voters for no legitimate reason. Not liking the president is hardly a rationale for impeachment.
Liberals view of universal rights is that they are not transcendent. In other words, they are arbitrary and man-made. And like their view of morality, rights are relative. Nevertheless, they then do a bait and switch and argue for their newly discovered (invented) rights as if they are somehow transcendent and universally binding. So much so that they are willing to almost completely by-pass the democratic legislative process. In the U.S. the “right” to abortion and the “right” to same sex marriage were created virtually whole cloth by the U.S. Supreme Court, not the U.S. Congress and not by the will of the people.
Finally, these so-called liberals are also very intolerant. Instead of real tolerance they use rhetoric to present the pretense of tolerance. What we get from them instead is a lot of rhetoric and virtue signaling about wokeness, social justice and oppressed minorities etc. but this is all a façade. They only tolerate people who agree with them. They don’t tolerate– indeed they vilify, demonize and marginalize people who disagree with them. Furthermore, they are ready to denounce anyone who disagrees with them as racist, sexist, homophobic… But tolerating people who disagree with you is what tolerance really is. Democracy can’t exist without real tolerance. Intolerant “liberals” are doing more than anyone else to undermine its foundations.