Tag: de-platforming

Fighting for “Consensual Reality”

Susan Quinn
Susan Quinn
4921
 

Now there’s talk of de-platforming conservative cable news programs. Is anyone surprised? Former Facebook executive Alex Stamos spoke on CNN on Sunday, and is “fighting for the people” in protesting the right-wing programs:

And then we have to figure out the OANN and Newsmax problem that these companies have freedom of speech, but I’m not sure we need Verizon, AT&T, Comcast, and such to be bringing them into tens of millions of homes. This is allowing people to seek out information if they really want to, but not pushing it into their faces I think is really where we’re going to have to go here.

I’m sorry to share a quotation that is slightly incoherent, but I think the gist of his comment is that he wants to respect freedom of speech, except he doesn’t. And he appears to want people to find information they are interested in, except that companies like Verizon, AT&T, and Comcast shouldn’t be providing it.

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Outsourcing Curation of Access to a Platform Is More Efficient than Crude Censorship

Zafar
Zafar
3011
 

In 1975 Indira Gandhi declared a state of national emergency in India due to “internal disturbances caused by a Foreign Hand.” (She meant the CIA.)

It is widely believed that she actually declared The Emergency (ever since capitalized in India, like The War) because she had just been found guilty by the Supreme Court of using state machinery for electioneering, and she didn’t know what the personal or political consequences of that would be. Anyway, declare it she did and a wide range of civil liberties were suspended. More than 100,000 people were incarcerated as political prisoners over the next two years and there was a very murky forcible sterilization program implemented in parts of North India. In 1977, Indira Gandhi ended The Emergency, released all political prisoners, and called a general election in which her party (the Indian National Congress) was trounced and she lost her own seat.

The Janata Party, the coalition that won the election, managed to maintain their Parliamentary majority till 1980 when internal differences overcame them. They were forced to call an election, Indira Gandhi and the Congress were voted back into power, and the country slipped back into a stupor for the next few years.

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