Suppression/Propaganda in Media

[DrEvil]

Where did you get the info that the government threatened Youtube to cancel him? I'm not defending Youtube, I'm defending the idea that free speech includes the freedom of association. No one can force you to associate with someone you don't want to associate with. If Youtube is still running ads on his videos and pocketing the money that's an incredibly shitty thing to do, which is why I said they should stop being hypocritical scumbags and just kick him off their platform entirely if they dislike him so much, instead of this virtue signalling bullshit that doesn't cost them anything. He's got over a million followers on Rumble, and several million more on Twitter and Instagram, he'll be fine. Long term I think shit like this happening is a good thing, because it encourages the growth of alternatives like Rumble and Bitchute. The more people hate Youtube, the better for the competition.

People keep being shocked at these things happening, and I keep being mystified that people are shocked. Youtube is as mainstream as it gets. What the Hell did you expect them to do? Don't trust them to do the right thing, trust them to protect their profits and toe the company line, just like mainstream media always did. Just because it's a different format or "on the Internet" doesn't make it any different from the gatekeepers of old.

And if you haven't heard about people experiencing consequences for things they allegedly did before this I question what planet you live on. #Metoo is a recent and very relevant example.

[stickdog99]

The Russell Brand ruse is up. The UK Parliament just sent form letters to TikTok and Rumble demanding that they also demonetize Brand!

Does the UK government have the right to threaten private entities not to do business with a citizen because decades-old anonymous allegations were made against this citizen?

I mean, regardless of your personal disdain for Brand and/or defense of any corporate punishment of him, don't you think this sets a bad precedent? Can you think of a single example of something like this happening in the past in the public domain in any supposedly free nation?

[Belligerent Savant]

.

I, for one, am not "shocked" by these developments, nor was "shock" expressed here by anyone. Most of this is, at a minimum, pointing out the incremental encroachment of egregious/brazen control attempts and restrictive measures, both by 'corporate entities' (a number of which rely heavily on govt funding, and indeed, often have their roots in govt agency involvement since inception [I'm referring here to Alphabet/Google, which owns Youtube; Tesla -- and all of Musk's enterprises -- is another example]) and State Govt policies/comments/actions.

"MeToo" was simply one of the first incremental forays into this creeping totalitarian slide (as a form of 'priming'; of 'astroturfing'/limited hangout; using what appeared to be a legitimate cause/issue, at least in part, for other ends, etc. -- an M.O. not dissimilar to this current Brand situation)

One would think that, given all we've observed over the last ~3yrs in particular, there'd be at least some form of dawning awareness that things are moving more swiftly into the realm of overt centralized/totalitarian actions by govts and their proxies.

The continued (obtuse) hand-waving dismissals -- by fellow humans passively or actively observing these [and other] issues -- is the part that may be stupefying at times, not the actions perpetrated by these entities, which should surprise no one. (and yet: millions of perhaps irrevocably conditioned/propagandized humans out there in the world continue to largely defend or apologize for these actions, reflexively mocking any counters regardless of merit)

[stickdog99]

Rumble: platform hosting Russell Brand may be forced offline

The “free speech” website that hosts Russell Brand could be forced out of the UK under new online safety laws, experts have said.

Rumble, a video-sharing platform based in North America, has become home to Brand and other figures with extreme views, including Andrew Tate and Alex Jones, the conspiracy theorist.

It also hosts extreme videos on race and antisemitism that mainstream platforms such as YouTube have made more of an effort to take down.

Rumble has been thrust into the spotlight after Brand used it to declare his innocence of sexual assault claims.

Under the Online Safety Bill, which is due to become law next month, Rumble will be regulated by Ofcom because it is accessible in the UK.

Brand has recognised the impact the new law could have. In a statement on Friday, he said: “The British government has asked big tech platforms to censor our online content. [This] bill . . . is a piece of UK legislation that grants sweeping surveillance and censorship powers.”

Under the new law Rumble will have to prevent children from seeing pornography and material that promotes self-harm, suicide or eating disorders. Violent content and material harmful to health, such as vaccine misinformation, will also have to be kept from children.

Ofcom will also draw up new guidelines on violence against women and girls that will have to be adhered to.
Rumble will also have to take down material that is illegal, such as videos that incite violence or race hate.

All these obligations will be hard for Rumble’s management to stomach, according to Lord Allan of Hallam, a former Facebook executive who has advised on the bill.

“You can’t get out of this by saying ‘I’m a crazy American platform, that’s not ok’ and that somehow you get a free pass. They don’t get a free pass,” he said. “Their whole philosophy is freedom of expression . . . a kind of ‘screw you’. So when they get a letter from Ofcom saying, ‘Here are all the things you’re going to have to do’, it seems to me the most likely reaction is going to be they’re going to say, ‘Well, we won’t operate in the UK any more.’ ”

Noncooperation could leave Rumble executives open to arrest if they came to Britain, as the bill provides for senior managers to be held criminally liable.

Professor Lorna Woods, an internet law expert who was one of the architects of the bill, said Ofcom had the ability to disrupt or block Rumble if it did not comply.

...

[drstrangelove]

i don't see any issue with these laws. the great thing about internet law is it can be ignored. rumble can block access to the UK, and people in the UK can just use a vpn to access rumble. it was only a matter of time before they started to flex regulatory barriers to entry.

people who are completely reliant on third-party platforms shouldn't complain about the lack of control they have over their content. everything's a trap. they lure you in, help you build a following, allow you to generate a little bit of income, get nice and cozy, and your trapped.

as ad revenue dries up at the big tech firms content creators are going to learn a valuable lesson.

[Belligerent Savant]

^^^^^^^^^

No disagreement with the above points/line of thinking-- particularly over-reliance on social media for sources of income, etc -- but the larger perspective remains, as govts are already turning screws tightly Re: censorship and punishment for 'WRONGTHINK'.

[stickdog99]

I don't think anyone should be subject to imprisonment for expressing political speech or allowing free political speech on their platform.

But I guess I am now in a small minority?

[Belligerent Savant]

Co-sign the above.

Fuck the majority anyway. The last ~3yrs have made clear they’re highly prone to suggestibility, cowardice and duplicity.

[Belligerent Savant]

[Grizzly]

https://www.canada.ca/en/radio-television-telecommunications/news/2023/09/crtc-takes-major-step-forward-to-modernize-canadas-broadcasting-framework.html


https://twitter.com/brianlilley/status/1707837977777352920?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

[Belligerent Savant]

[Grizzly]

Before Podcasting is outlawed...


https://podverse.fm/episode/4ErofFo_x
309 - Jacob Howland - Technological Cannibalism

I had an amazing discussion with Jacob Howland about the fundamental question of technology. We investigate from both the Biblical and ancient Greek perspectives what technology is and its effects on the human spirit. We discuss the notion of memory and recollection, Plato’s Phaedrus, the Biblical notion of garments of skin, ChatGPT and AI, work and leisure, technology’s effects on human capabilities, paganism and idolatry, intelligence, and “the matrix”, the internet, intuition, and much more. Jacob Howland is the Provost and Director of the Intellectual Foundations Program at UATX, commonly known as the University of Austin. His latest book is Glaucon's Fate: History, Myth, and Character in Plato's Republic (Paul Dry Books, 2018): https://www.amazon.com/Glaucons-Fate-Hi ... 1589881346 Jacob Howland’s website: https://www.jacobhowland.com/ His articles on Unherd: https://unherd.com/author/jacob-howlandunherd-com/ Original YouTube version: https://youtu.be/o468OtytbVQ Timestamps: 00:00 - Coming up 01:02 - Intro music 01:28 - Introduction 01:59 - Different narratives about technology 04:09 - Technology from the Greek perspective 05:01 - Plato's Phaedra - and fixing words 08:16 - Egypt 09:29 - Suppressing recollection 11:13 - The garments of skin 15:02 - Work - sorting chaos 18:17 - Human capabilities diminishing 19:53 - ChatGPT cannibalizes itself 22:06 - A pagan god that feeds on humans 23:52 - Human batteries 26:03 - Intuition - direct access to reality 28:49 - What do we mean by intelligence? 30:47 - Understand AI as idolatry 32:19 - The gold of the golden calf 34:53 - The tabernacle 35:33 - A body of power 37:39 - card: Beasts in Revelation 39:16 - Work and leisure 47:45 - Monastic life and leisure 49:18 - Not anti-technology 50:54 - The Henry Adams curve 56:56 - The Beast kills the whore 1:00:17 - Plato's cave 1:01:19 - There is no "solution" 1:03:24 - Prometheus’ cycle of desire 1:05:58 - The flip side of all of this 1:10:15 - Paradise Lost 1:11:09 - The need for transcendence 1:12:26 - Re-engage at the human scale Website and blog: http://www.thesymbolicworld.comLinktree: https://linktr.ee/jonathanpageau Join The Symbolic World Community for discussions about symbolism:

Also see

https://newsletter.unlimitedhangout.com/2023-10-06-newsletter/
Enforcing Digital Identity

The United Nations claims that the purpose of Sustainable Development Goal 16 (SDG16) is to promote peaceful and inclusive societies and to provide access to justice for all. Hiding behind the rhetoric is the real objective: to strengthen and consolidate the power and authority of the "global governance regime" and to exploit threats—both real and imagined—in order to advance regime hegemony. In Part 2, Iain and Whitney examine the centrality of Digital ID (SDG 16.9) in this endeavour.

[Elvis]

I don't think anyone should be subject to imprisonment for expressing political speech or allowing free political speech on their platform.

But I guess I am now in a small minority?

But protecting speech requires due process—a legal concept of the state, and we can't have any of that!

[Belligerent Savant]

.
I truly hope you're not implying that there are those here that advocate for NO government. Because that would be a highly insipid interpretation of the criticisms (as articulated here in RI) leveled at govts and their respective actions over the last ~3+ yrs (or frankly, since any of us initiated discussion on this board).

Govt overreach is a fucking real thing. Calling out overreach is NECESSARY. Assuming good faith at all times is Foolish. Increasingly so.

Scrutiny is Healthy. Increasingly so.

Applying EXISTING, historical laws and procedure as intended -- due process among them -- is critical to any sound State. A big problem, increasingly pervasive among govts worldwide, is that many existing laws and procedures are being ignored and in some cases discarded outright under a number of (ostensible) "States of Emergency" that persist for indeterminate periods of time, well past the timeframe a given 'emergency' (actual, fabricated, or somewhere in between) subsided.

This can otherwise be identified as a form of totalitarianism.

Of course, there are times when certain historical rulings/laws can be revisited and even challenged, when conducted earnestly and in good faith.

Those raising objections here are principally concerned -- rightfully-- that the System, as currently construed, is [largely] deeply compromised and corrupted, and does NOT operate in good faith in many instances.

This is a big part of the reason a number of us are inspired to type any fucking words in this space to begin with (among other reasons, with varying degrees of coherence, earnestness and/or clear thinking).

[DrEvil]

I don't think anyone should be subject to imprisonment for expressing political speech or allowing free political speech on their platform.

But I guess I am now in a small minority?

Is anyone saying Brand should be locked up for his speech? It's not his speech that got him in trouble, but the accusations of being a serial rapist. If he ends up in court over it he gets his due process, but people and companies are still free to exercise their own free speech by deciding not to have anything to do with him, regardless of the legal outcome.