The Censors Get Censored
On both sides of the Atlantic, the Christmas period saw a surge of approval for the Trump administration’s decision to sanction online censorship campaigners, alongside a great deal of European establishment hypocrisy in response. According to the BBC, on Christmas Eve five European ‘radical activists’, including two Britons, were denied U.S. visas. In the case of the founder of the Centre for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), Imran Ahmed, that likely means deportation and separation from his wife and child. Harsh. But it is precisely this type of state intervention that Ahmed, who has since won a temporary injunction against enforcement of the sanctions, has campaigned for. Are these censors now getting a taste of their own medicine?
CCDH claims it “delivers change by exposing hate and disinformation producers, galvanising support from the public and advertisers for tech reform, shaping informed debates, driving policy changes and collaborating with civil society leaders for social media reform”. ‘Hate’ and ‘disinformation’, however, are nebulous concepts. Hate, like anger, is an emotion which is usually managed in well-adjusted adults by conscience. Take a deep breath. Count to five. Go for a walk. Have a cup of tea.
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It’s encouraging that many in America have woken up to the scams being used to suppress them. Unfortunately the leftie mind can’t cope with facts, because to do so would destroy their own belief systems, therefore they hide behind soundbites which in their minds justify their beliefs. So the fact that groups name themselves as anti hate/fascist etc means they are but when held up to close scrutiny are the opposite. so they say that censorship upholds free speech, when what they mean is it satisfies their need to uphold their dogma. All you have to do is look at many of our politicians, they simply twist and turn when questioned, they talk about rights for some, which remove rights from others. I think one of the best examples is the Liberal Democrat’s, who immediately tried to subvert a democratic vote over Brexit. Other examples are countries using Democratic in their names, all are not democratic. As far as I can see most of them live in a bubble which reinforces their insane beliefs and they convince themselves that what is good for them is good for everyone. The past 200 years has proven that they are absolutely wrong so… Read more »
The Illiberal Undemocrats…
“Unfortunately the leftie mind can’t cope with facts, because to do so would destroy their own belief systems..”
Hardly something exclusive to the so-called ‘Left’ as I see such behaviour demonstrated on here regularly. Denialism and belief perseverance are not confined to an over-simplistic ‘Left vs Right’ binary. This is where people fall foul of assuming an ‘us vs them’ mentality, by not acknowledging people as individuals as a way to support their worldview and bolster their argument.
As with confirmation bias, *all* people are guilty as charged, irrespective of political stance.
Yes, people have bias but so called right wing people do not have an ideological agenda, the left try to make out that they do though
These people attempt to destroy companies through intimidation and ultimately violence deployed by the state on their behalf for political ends. That’s a form of terrorism really. They should be charged as terrorists.
And as you rightly pointed out the other day, the approach is to portray anyone who doesn’t agree with them as bad people. Anything we don’t like is “hate”. Who isn’t opposed to “hate”?
Yes. Typical rubbish from the BBC. He’s slated for deportation. His wife can decide whether this is an opportunity to separate from him or not.
He and his family will be welcomed with open arms by the organisers of his poisonous agency in no 10 Downing Street. Just like the anti semitic and violent Egyptian who had been locked up by their government, who Starmer was delighted to see freed. Unlike the tweeters who instantly cancelled their angry words and were jailed under 2Tiers instructions.
Straight on to benefits then. Our tax money paid to CCDH, and they pay him. Benefits by any other name.
I am rather glad that these communists are getting a taste of the pain they have handed out so willingly and gleefully. They are all commies. Call them that, always.
Spot on, always call them communist, or at least if talking about socialism don’t argue just refer to them as communists. Use their methods, people need to treat them in the same way they treat others.Get them to prove that socialism is not communism. I think people also need to chip away at them, just as they’ve been doing since Atlee gained power and set this catastrophe in motion.
From Wikipedia:
The Collective would have you believe that “Resistance is futile”. We shall see.
As Worf put it before the crucial battle: “The Borg have neither honour nor courage. *That* is our greatest advantage.”
I fear the common Republiborg are not much different from the common Democraborg in this respect.
As an aside: As usual, SF authors overestimate technological advances in the future here. They thought it would need implants for people to agree to remain constantly connected to the collective for supervision and guidance. In reality, it turned out they’ll gladly carry these device in their hands instead. They’re called mobiles. Your might have seen some already.
In Brave New World Revisited, Huxley admits that he failed to anticipate nuclear weapons. Even then he wasn’t anticipating a cyber world. Everything is a double edged sword. If you allow a device to control your life, as things stand, then more fool you. I say this as someone who once posted bank transactions in a ledger with pen and ink as my employment. We even had to learn to recognise each signature on cheques. Now that’s what I call a waste of time.
Borg implants aren’t control devices, they’re communication devices and they’re used to link each individual Borg to all others (the collective) so that all of them are in constant communication with each other. This means that any experience of a Borg is immediately shared with all other Borg and any action of one based on a collective-wide consensus. That’s pretty similar to people using mobiles to connect to X/ Twitter or similar services with or without involving the conventional internet.
The idea is based on an observation I once made in Reading: One of the common mobile zombies was walking along Bridge Street while busily texting. She then stumbled over something and accidentally smashed her phone on the pavement. Picking up the parts from the ground, she stared at them in stunned desperation. When I saw this, I thought “Seems someone just destroyed his Borg implant by accident!” [and is now cut off from the collective for the first time ever!]