JD Morecambe writes:

“Tyranny in democratic republics does not proceed in the same way,
however. It ignores the body and goes straight for the soul. The
master no longer says: You will think as I do or die. He says: You are
free not to think as I do. You may keep your life, your property, and
everything else. But from this day forth you shall be as a stranger
among us.”
– Alexis De Tocqueville, Democracy in America

Imagine a future where a benevolent all-seeing and all-powerful censor
quietly manipulates everything you see, hear and watch; tracks and
limits everyone you communicate with and determines what information
is spread, and what is suppressed. No form of communication exists
which does not pass through the filters of the censors.

So powerful are these censors that they can suppress not only information, but people too. No one is immune from this gentle yet persistent form of
persecution, and even the most senior in government are routinely
‘non-personed’; though they still live, they are rendered voiceless.
This is not the theme of some 20th century dystopian novel, but the
world we inhabit in 2021.

The spotty tech-geeks of Silicon valley have accrued, along with their
billions and our indifference, an overwhelming monopoly over
communications during the past decade. They have now matured from
adolescent cyber-nerds tinkering with their early IT systems into
greying and sinister tyrants who mouth slogans like “Don’t Be Evil” as
they continue to consolidate their domination over the most advanced
tool of social control ever built; the centralised internet.

We have been sacrificing our privacy and free expression in return for
centralised convenience online for some time, but 2021 is already
proving to be the year when the libertarian pretensions that typified
the early internet are finally falling away like dross, leaving behind
the glistening ore of raw power. While the rest of us spent 2020
largely muzzled, in 2021 their mask has slipped.

So complete is their monopoly that they can now silence even the most
powerful man in the world; the President of the United States.
Since protestors broke into the US Capitol Building, Facebook and
Instagram have blamed the President Trump with inciting an
‘insurrection’ and banned the President from communicating with the
public indefinitely. Twitter has permanently banned the President from
their platform. YouTube have introduced a removal policy for accounts
that question the US election results, and regularly bans dissenting
content.

Tiktok have cancelled Trump-related hashtags, claiming that
‘Hateful behavior and violence have no place’ on the Chinese-owned
platform. Reddit has removed Trump-related Subreddits. Shopify has
cancelled Trump’s online stores. Google and Apple have removed
alternative social media competitors from their app-stores, and
Amazon, claiming that they “pose a very real risk to public safety”
has ceased web-hosting such rival platforms as Parler, effectively
removing it from the internet until it can rebuild the site, as
Parler’s CEO John Matze said, “from scratch” with another host.
Why is this happening?

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