MONOKULTUR

Russell Brand har gjort sig skyldig i at være anklaget for seksuelle krænkelser af en håndfuld kvinder. Flere sociale platforme har lukket for hans indtjeningsmuligheder, som “indholds-skaber” for ved at ramme ham på hans forretningsmodel, kan have have færre ansatte og derved blive mindre relevant, forklarede Mike Benz. “Freedom of speech, not reach” som Twitters fungerende direktør Linda Yaccarino udtrykker det.

Men Rumble står fast på ytringsfriheden, selv om den engelske regering har krævet, at Brand censureres også af dem. Så derfor pudser regeringen medierne på Rumble, ved at defamere video-tjenesten, som stedet for det yderste højre, hvor mis-, des- og malinformation spredes. The Sun skriver

The new law says internet firms must prevent children from seeing pornography as well as any material promoting eating disorders, self-harm and suicide.

Violent content and material harmful to health, including misinformation about vaccines, will also be barred.

And platforms will also be told to take down illegal material such as videos inciting violence or race hate.

Former Facebook executive Lord Allan of Hallam told The Times a new crackdown could deter Rumble’s management.

He said: “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.

“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’.”

Failing to co-operate with Ofcom could put Rumble executives at risk of arrest if visiting Britain, it has been suggested.

Hvad ligner det at stå fast på sin frihed? Bortset fra gummiparagraffen om misinformation, så gør Brand sig ikke skyldig i nogle af de oplistede forbrydelser, men de nævnes i samme åndedrag og den kursoriske læser får et dystert indtryk af Brands virke. Mike Benz forudså tidligere “Ultimately, they will use a rule-of-law predicate to effectively ban alternative platforms.” og henviste til en artikel han havde skrevet sidste år, om hvorledes censur er blevet en industri de senere år

Pummeled by an unrelenting procession of censors, fact-checkers, artificial intelligence wrongthink detectors, “Trust & Safety” teams, “disinformation” specialists, and “rapid response units” deployed to scan-and-ban opinions on breaking news events, America’s mythic hero – Free Speechicus – looked down and out.

Then suddenly, Elon Musk appeared. Musk, as if lowered by crane to the stage of democracy itself, now promises to put Pandora’s censorship monsters back in their box.

(…)

From 2006 to 2016, censorship was an act. In the five years that followed, censorship became an industry. Its powerful stakeholders now span every major media conglomerate, every major online payment provider, every major US and UK college and university, hundreds of think tanks, NGOs and pressure groups, international regulatory and watchdog commissions, and is now firmly interwoven with the policies and operations of the US State Department, the Pentagon, and the intelligence services.

“Google embedded AI censorship into its Google Docs word processor to add friction for users engaged in wrongspeak. Microsoft already changed its Windows terms of service in 2019 to ban PC users engaged in undefined “hate speech.”” Det forklarer nogle problemer, jeg ind imellem har, når jeg skriver blogindlæg. “Like Gulliver, tied down by thousands of of little strings, we lose our freedom one regulation at a time” skrev Musk. Som muligheden for at det enkelte menneske  Benz artikel fortsætter

In 2020, mere double-digit billionaire Mark Zuckerberg — who just one year earlier bemoaned censorship going too far – quickly tapped out after Facebook lost $60 billion to an advertiser shakedown directed at the company for failing to censor hard enough. Such shakedowns are now a seasonal rite of passage for all social media companies.

(…)

Inevitably, the censorship industry will promote rule-of-law pretexts to force Musk to crush a free speech Twitter. When this happens, it will not be a novel occurrence – history will have merely retweeted itself.

There’s a little-known secret history of how the first great wave of Internet censorship began in 2017. It didn’t start with the tech companies themselves. Veteran diplomats from the State Department, expecting promotions after Hillary Clinton won the 2016 Presidential election, were unceremoniously fired when Donald Trump won instead.

Trump’s victory was blamed on the free and open Internet. Capitalizing on EU partners’ fears that 2016’s Brexit vote would lead to Frexit in France, Grexit in Greece, and Italexit in Italy, these powerful diplomats took their influence across the Atlantic. There, they pressured European regulators to pass novel Internet censorship laws such as Germany’s 2017 NetzDG— knowing US tech companies would be forced to apply similar censorship measures at home to preserve continuity with their global markets.

A second EU-to-US censorship pipeline has already been established. Last week, both President Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton heralded the new EU Digital Services Act as a tool for cracking down on “disinformation” (read: different opinions online).

Glenn Greenwald skriver

Not only is corporate media like @AP predictably running hit pieces on Rumble for its crime of not obeying censorship orders of the neoliberal establishment, but British media outlets are explicitly threatening that Rumble will be banned from the UK under its repressive new law:

I can’t emphasize this enough: The top priority of western elites is internet control: the Snowden story was about online surveillance; since 2016, it is about censorship. Ane platform defying this regime will not just be maligned, but threatened with *nationwide* banning.

The British press is now invoking the new and repressive “Online Safety Bill” not only to argue that Rumble can and should be banned entirely from the UK, but tabloids are also insinuating its executives could be subject to *arrest* when entering the UK. 

We watched the western press completely reverse itself when it came to @ElonMusk, turning him into public enemy number one for merely suggesting he’d refuse their censorship commands. He now faces all sorts of reprisals. What’s being done to Rumble is a new major escalation.

Der er blandt Demokrater en skræmmende tilslutning til censur, skriver Tom Bevan.

47% of Dems say free speech should be legal ‘only under certain circumstances. 34% of Dems say Americans ‘have too much freedom’ 75% of Dems say government has a responsibility to censor ‘hateful’ social media posts Only 31% strongly agree with the statement, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.’

Første episode af Benzs “Censorship Industry Decoded – The Washington Post Response”

My response to the Washington Post.

This is a 40-minute lecture, Part 1 in what I'd like to be an ongoing series, Censorship Industry Decoded.

This first video cut through the tricks & traps in WaPo's verbage. These tricks are stock for the industry & essential to understand. pic.twitter.com/XWHdRatY3G

— Mike Benz (@MikeBenzCyber) June 8, 2023