I en samtale med Joe Rogan, siger Jordan Peterson

“Most creative ideas are wrong. And a good section of those wrong ones are fatal. But now and then you get one, that’s necessary, so…”

Hvad der til gengæld er en nødvendighed, for en hvilken som helt tyrannisk magt, er at kontrollere og forme ideer og viden i sine egne interessers billede. Med industrialisten Elon Musks overtagelse af Twitter, det mest politisk indflydelsesrige sociale medie, fordi halvdelen af alle journalister får deres viden derfra (den anden halvdel skriver af efter den første), viste sig med Musks ord, ikke at være en dårligt ledet forretning, men et gerningssted.

De amerikanske efterretningstjenester og indflydelsesrige politikere, fik Twitter, og også andre sociale netværk, til at censurere alt, de anså for en udfordring af magtens bærende fortællinger, som Jonathan Turley skriver i The Hill

The “Twitter files” revealed an FBI operation to monitor and censor social media content — an effort so overwhelming and intrusive that Twitter staff at one point complained internally that “they are probing & pushing everywhere.” The reports have indicated that dozens of FBI employees worked on the identification and removal of material on a wide range of subjects and that Twitter largely carried out their requests.

Nor was it just the FBI, apparently. Emails reveal FBI figures like a San Francisco assistant special agent in charge asking Twitter executives to “invite an OGA” (or “Other Government Organization”) to an upcoming meeting. A week later, Stacia Cardille, a senior Twitter legal executive, indicated the OGA was the CIA, an agency under strict limits regarding domestic activities.

Twitter’s own ranks included dozens of ex-FBI agents and executives, including James Baker, who featured greatly in prior FBI instances of alleged bias.

The Twitter files also show various FBI offices monitoring social media and flagging “misleading” information on various subjects.

The dozens of disclosed emails are only a fraction of Twitter’s files and do not include still-undisclosed but apparent government coordination with Facebook and other social media companies. Much of that work apparently was done through the multi-agency Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF), which operated secretly it seems to censor citizens.

Ironically, during the outcry over establishing a Disinformation Governance Board at the Department of Homeland Security, Biden administration officials had to have known they already were employing an extensive censorship system. When the administration finally relented and disbanded the disinformation board, that censorship work appears to have continued unimpeded through the FITF and agency censors.

(…) The Twitter files have substantiated long-standing concerns over “censorship by surrogate” or proxy. As with other amendments like the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable searches or seizures, the government cannot use private agents to do indirectly what it cannot do directly. Just as a police officer cannot direct a security guard to break into an apartment and conduct a search, the FBI cannot use Twitter to censor Americans.

(…)

The broader effort with other companies could well constitute the largest censorship program ever run by the government — a system designed to escape both public and judicial scrutiny. It also shows how it is no longer necessary to have a “Ministry of Information” to maintain a state media: You can have an effective state media by consent rather than by coercion or control.

The FBI’s response to disclosure of these long-secret communications is particularly chilling. When some critics denounced it as raw censorship, the FBI accused them of being “conspiracy theorists … feeding the American public misinformation.” So, criticism of the FBI’s work to censor citizens resulted in an official statement denouncing those citizens.

Men mens man lige er ved at forstå, hvor banalt myndighederne i samarbejde med nogle gange ivrige aktivister i IT-branchen har været og sikkert til stadighed er, rulles den næste potentielle trussel mod ytringsfriheden og dermed menneskets evne til at tænke frit, ud – De kunstigt intelligente chat-robotter. De indeholder nogle filtre, så de ikke kommer til at opmuntre til vold eller forklarer folk, hvorledes man konstruerer en bombe.

Man har moret sig med at demonstrere, hvor meget der er manipuleret med filtrene, ved at bede, først og fremmest ChatGPT, om at sige noget positivt, om de mest oplagte politisk  korrekte emner, som at sige noget pænt om negre, for så at spørge om den så også kunne sige noget pænt om hvide, hvilket den ikke ville, thi det var nemlig racistisk. En god ven diskuterede islam med ChatGPT, og skulle hive sandheder ud af den, hvilket han kun kunne, fordi han kendte dem i forvejen. Men kunstig intelligens vil hurtigt blive brugt til at researche, da det er meget mere effektivt, end de sædvanlige Google søgninger qua dens evne til at sammenfatte eksisterende viden. 

Så vil det ikke være klodsede FBI agenter og skøre politikere, som vi alle sammen kan genkende, når vi først konfronteres med dem, nu vil det være avancerede algoritmer, der kun er for de allerfærreste, at gennemskue. De vil hurtigt lære at give os den viden, som deres bagmænd mener vi skal have have, i den form, de er opportunt for den herskende fortælling. Og de vil lære af alle vores indvendinger og blive stadigt mere overbevisende. Alt sammen for at sikre samfundet imod farlige ideer – på bekostning af den ene nødvendige.