Social media was doing just fine until the corporate censors stepped in, and yes, I'm thinking about Alex Jones suddenly being dropped by a succession of social media networks in falling domino fashion. No, I've not spent a lot of time checking out Jones' shtick in the past because his stuff doesn't appeal to me, but to each his own. Pardon me, to each THEIR own.
Ironically, Alex Jones' stock-in-trade warnings about conspiracies now seem to have come true -- right in his living room, basically. If just one SM network had dropped him, well, hmm -- but several almost simultaneously?
This is some pretty dangerous activity on the ol' Internet. Wasn't this vast digital wasteland supposed to be the ultimate, if not the last bastion of anything-goes free speech? If the major players won't allow potentially loathsome or eye of the beholder speech online, what remains? Used to be, any high school kid realized that a major responsibility of the First Amendment is to protect words which offend, not simply the sappy tympanic membrane and optical nerve-safe stuff.
But like so many other things, there's probably much more going on here. For starters, leftists who think they own the Web would love to rid the world of both conservative sites and of those who would question and unravel their power. No, Alex Jones is not a conservative, but he doesn't need to be. He can be outspoken, he can be outrageously wrong and he can act the fool, his choice. The thing is, in American society such people have both their supporters and detractors, and as long as everybody has a fair chance to vent their opinions, we'll be fine.
Unfortunately, the dictators of mind control don't merely ply their trade in China, Russia and North Korea. We have our own, right here in the USA, though it was never supposed to be this way. And if the only cure for selective private censorship is more government control, we're in more trouble than we care to believe, though this evolving situation regarding denial of service over alleged violation of nebulous "standards" by major players may indeed lead to the halls of Congress for. . .something.
We shudder, too, to ponder that much of the current status Web-wise likely stems from global influences laboring and tweaking in conjunction with domestic decision makers.
As many sources have already pointed out, how is it, for example, that social media participants such as Louis Farrakhan haven't been banned for violent rhetoric? Obviously, this is but one example. Who goes and who stays -- when maybe everybody, with few exceptions, should stay?
If little else, the major social media companies suddenly appear to have engaged in exactly what they're pursuing Trump for -- collusion. Ironic, yes? Or is the word conspiracy?
