What makes this outburst of Western censorship so notable â and what is at least partially driving it â is that there is a clear, demonstrable hunger in the West for news and information that is banished by Western news sources, ones which loyally and unquestioningly mimic claims from the U.S. government, NATO, and Ukrainian officials. As The Washington Postacknowledged when reporting Big Tech's âunprecedentedâ banning of RT, Sputnik and other Russian sources of news: âIn the first four days of Russiaâs invasion of Ukraine, viewership of more than a dozen Russian state-backed propaganda channels on YouTube spiked to unusually high levels.â
Note that this censorship regime is completely one-sided and, as usual, entirely aligned with U.S. foreign policy. Western news outlets and social media platforms have been flooded with pro-Ukrainian propaganda and outright lies from the start of the war. A New York Timesarticle from early March put it very delicately in its headline: âFact and Mythmaking Blend in Ukraineâs Information War.â Axios was similarly understated in recognizing this fact: âUkraine misinformation is spreading â and not just from Russia.â Members of the U.S. Congress have gleefully spread fabrications that went viral to millions of people, with no action from censorship-happy Silicon Valley corporations. That is not a surprise: all participants in war use disinformation and propaganda to manipulate public opinion in their favor, and that certainly includes all direct and proxy-war belligerents in the war in Ukraine.
Yet there is little to no censorship â either by Western states or by Silicon Valley monopolies â of pro-Ukrainian disinformation, propaganda and lies. The censorship goes only in one direction: to silence any voices deemed âpro-Russian,â regardless of whether they spread disinformation. The "Russians With Attitudeâ Twitter account became popular in part because they sometimes criticized Russia, in part because they were more careful with facts and viral claims that most U.S. corporate media outlets, and in part because there is such a paucity of outlets that are willing to offer any information that undercuts what the U.S. Government and NATO want you to believe about the war.
Their crime, like the crime of so many other banished accounts, was not disinformation but skepticism about the US/NATO propaganda campaign. Put another way, it is not âdisinformation" but rather viewpoint-error that is targeted for silencing. One can spread as many lies and as much disinformation as one wants provided that it is designed to advance the NATO agenda in Ukraine (just as one is free to spread disinformation provided that its purpose is to strengthen the Democratic Party, which wields its majoritarian power in Washington to demand greater censorship and commands the support of most of Silicon Valley). But what one cannot do is question the NATO/Ukrainian propaganda framework without running a very substantial risk of banishment. (...)
But one question lingers: why is there so much urgency about silencing the small pockets of dissenting voices about the war in Ukraine? This war has united the establishment wings of both parties and virtually the entire corporate media with a lockstep consensus not seen since the days and weeks after the 9/11 attack. One can count on both hands the number of prominent political and media figures who have been willing to dissent even minimally from that bipartisan Washington consensus â dissent that instantly provokes vilification in the form of attacks on one's patriotism and loyalties. Why is there such fear of allowing these isolated and demonized voices to be heard at all?
The answer seems clear. The benefits from this war for multiple key Washington power centers cannot be overstated. (...)
One day last fall, I sat down to create a new Facebook account. I picked a forgettable name, snapped a profile pic with my face obscured, and clicked âLikeâ on the official pages of Donald Trump and his reelection campaign. Facebookâs algorithm prodded me to follow Ann Coulter, Fox Business, and a variety of fan pages with names like âIn Trump We Trust.â I complied. I also gave my cellphone number to the Trump campaign, and joined a handful of private Facebook groups for MAGA diehards, one of which required an application that seemed designed to screen out interlopers.
The presidentâs reelection campaign was then in the midst of a multimillion-dollar ad blitz aimed at shaping Americansâ understanding of the recently launched impeachment proceedings. Thousands of micro-targeted ads had flooded the internet, portraying Trump as a heroic reformer cracking down on foreign corruption while Democrats plotted a coup. That this narrative bore little resemblance to reality seemed only to accelerate its spread. Right-wing websites amplified every claim. Pro-Trump forums teemed with conspiracy theories. An alternate information ecosystem was taking shape around the biggest news story in the country, and I wanted to see it from the inside.
The story that unfurled in my Facebook feed over the next several weeks was, at times, disorienting. There were days when I would watch, live on TV, an impeachment hearing filled with damning testimony about the presidentâs conduct, only to look at my phone later and find a slickly edited videoâserved up by the Trump campaignâthat used out-of-context clips to recast the same testimony as an exoneration. Wait, I caught myself wondering more than once, is that what happened today?
As I swiped at my phone, a stream of pro-Trump propaganda filled the screen: âThatâs right, the whistleblowerâs own lawyer said, âThe coup has started â¦âââ Swipe. âDemocrats are doing Putinâs bidding â¦â Swipe. âThe only message these radical socialists and extremists will understand is a crushing â¦â Swipe. âOnly one man can stop this chaos â¦â Swipe, swipe, swipe.
I was surprised by the effect it had on me. Iâd assumed that my skepticism and media literacy would inoculate me against such distortions. But I soon found myself reflexively questioning every headline. It wasnât that I believed Trump and his boosters were telling the truth. It was that, in this state of heightened suspicion, truth itselfâabout Ukraine, impeachment, or anything elseâfelt more and more difficult to locate. With each swipe, the notion of observable reality drifted further out of reach.
What I was seeing was a strategy that has been deployed by illiberal political leaders around the world. Rather than shutting down dissenting voices, these leaders have learned to harness the democratizing power of social media for their own purposesâjamming the signals, sowing confusion. They no longer need to silence the dissident shouting in the streets; they can use a megaphone to drown him out. Scholars have a name for this: censorship through noise.
We cannot afford Medicare-for-all â this is the end of America as we know it economically. So people have got to wake up to realize we are already, with the retirement of the boomers, going for â heading for an economic shortfall â Medicare-for-all, free education, universal basic income, which are all the tenants of a socialist platform â it is not economically viable and we will go the way of every other empire that has imploded upon itself like the Roman empire.
Most medical costs arent optional...we already pay them one way or the other.
We cannot afford Medicare-for-all — this is the end of America as we know it economically. So people have got to wake up to realize we are already, with the retirement of the boomers, going for — heading for an economic shortfall — Medicare-for-all, free education, universal basic income, which are all the tenants of a socialist platform — it is not economically viable and we will go the way of every other empire that has imploded upon itself like the Roman empire.
Plenty examples of trying to control economically or politically. Go back to your definition.
Sure, only proves my point. You're not helping your argument, or the point you're trying to make with these random articles posts, one bit. On the contrary, it diminishes the message of the true harm from these types of actions.
They're not random. There's a pattern that you're not willing to see, i.e. denial. Imperialism is what causes those bad policies.
"National Security Advisor John Bolton announced that the US will freeze Venezuelan assets and block oil payments for Venezuelan oil imports to the US. This would not only be illegal, but would also be yet another crippling blow to the country, says CEPRâs Mark Weisbrot"
Plenty examples of trying to control economically or politically. Go back to your definition.
Sure, only proves my point. You're not helping your argument, or the point you're trying to make with these random articles posts, one bit. On the contrary, it diminishes the message of the true harm from these types of actions.
They're not random. There's a pattern that you're not willing to see, i.e. denial. Imperialism is what causes those bad policies.
"National Security Advisor John Bolton announced that the US will freeze Venezuelan assets and block oil payments for Venezuelan oil imports to the US. This would not only be illegal, but would also be yet another crippling blow to the country, says CEPRâs Mark Weisbrot"
Plenty examples of trying to control economically or politically. Go back to your definition.
Sure, only proves my point. You're not helping your argument, or the point you're trying to make with these random articles posts, one bit. On the contrary, it diminishes the message of the true harm from these types of actions.
They're not random. There's a pattern that you're not willing to see, i.e. denial. Imperialism is what causes those bad policies.
"National Security Advisor John Bolton announced that the US will freeze Venezuelan assets and block oil payments for Venezuelan oil imports to the US. This would not only be illegal, but would also be yet another crippling blow to the country, says CEPRâs Mark Weisbrot"
Plenty examples of trying to control economically or politically. Go back to your definition.
Sure, only proves my point. You're not helping your argument, or the point you're trying to make with these random articles posts, one bit. On the contrary, it diminishes the message of the true harm from these types of actions.
