Oppression (Revisited)

Between 1922 and 1924, Benito Mussolini worked with his own administration to forcibly silence opposing political parties, free press, and trade unions, and has plenty of spies and secret police running around in Italy. In 1928, the Central Committee determined that the State had the right to effectively censor literature in the Soviet Union. Later in 1928, Joseph Stalin introduced a five year plan in which workers who were absent during a work day, or produced less than certain quotas, should be publicly named by the factories they work, and face prison or execution. In 1933, Adolf Hitler worked with Nazi officials to begin programs of propaganda and censorship in Germany. These programs included book burnings, movie disruptions, and control over other forms of media. The Nazis also had their own way of forcibly silencing people.

In all of these examples, implementing widespread censorship is (relatively speaking) an early move in the course of the different powers. In all of these examples, a strong dictatorial presence reigned over the respective country, relying on the hatred and/fear of some other demographic. None of the examples are exactly the same. They had different ideologies, different enemies, and yet still notoriously infamous leaders.

Flash forward 90 years, and here we are seeing another huge move in the wrong direction. This is not being perpetrated by the American government (yet), but by businesses whose products has grown and evolved in such a way that they could be public goods. And half of the country thinks it’s totally fine.

When Twitter listed the reasons that it banned President Trump permanently off its platform, I thought they might have caught a wild tweet early and took action. Not the case at all. The tweets referenced some which could be seen as benign. Others, of course, have taken them as something more sinister. But Twitter’s a private business, with Terms of Use, they should have the right to ban anyone they want, right?

The double standard in which they are exercising this right indicates a very large and clear bias. But why should that be a problem? Because the other major platforms are behaving similarly. The app Parler has been removed from the Apple App Store, the Google Play Store, and from the Amazon cloud back up service. All in an effort to stop what they determine to be dangerous forms of speech. It is worth wondering if a far-left leaning social media service was formed and its members acted the same way, right? Reddit is probably a good place to look to get an idea.

Here’s the thing: people can still communicate with out social media. Very easily, in fact. Cellphones, hand written letters, personal blogs, and in person communication are all viable forms of effective communication. Now the catch: with right-leaning people being ostracized from these sorts of platforms, they find themselves in echo chambers of their own belief systems. Ideas in these environments can grow to become dangerous without having opposing points of view to challenge them or attempt civil discourse.

As an aside, regarding the PEACEFUL part of the Capitol protests, I would like to say that the outspoken opponents of Donald Trump are largely to blame, in my opinion. Four years of being called vile things for being conservative/Republicans/Trump supporters by anyone from former classmates to famous celebrities does not sit well with anyone. I’ve always said one person cannot divide our country, it takes the consent of the divided to do so. Donald Trump didn’t divide the country, all those who speak so arrogantly against Republicans as if their side is right is to blame. And vice versa.

Sources:

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Benito-Mussolini/Rise-to-power

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/nazi-propaganda-and-censorship

https://www.thoughtco.com/hitlers-rise-to-power-timeline-1221353