There once was opinion hegemony, almost a monopoly. Official gatekeepers kept unwanted ideas — including some of mine, including many I strongly oppose — out of public consideration.
Then came the online media revolution, which switched influence from corporate, academic-approved media outlets to truly new media, like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
And now? The counter-revolution.
We saw it obviously in the downgrade and then banning of Milo Yiannopoulis’s Twitter, last year. Since then, new measures surface on a regular basis.
We helots, we commonfolk, must not be allowed actually to affect an election!
Or the hearts and inquiring minds of Americans, Europeans, and others worldwide.
Unless that opinion has received the imprimatur of the Center-Left.
I’ve written about this return of the Gatekeeper mentality before. The latest malefactor is YouTube, which locked Dr. Jordan Peterson out of his account this week* as well as put in place new policies to hobble the social sharing elements of YouTube.**
A week or so earlier, Patreon, an online crowdfunding patronage web service I’ve been thinking about trying out, cancelled independent journalist Lauren Southern’s account. Patreon managers charged that her most recent endeavor might cause “loss of life,” but, tellingly, “showed no evidence or proof, are allowing no appeal and have acted as judge, jury and executioner” — as one concerned netizen not inaccurately summarized.
The company’s CEO calmly explained himself to Dave Rubin on YouTube. Does he convince you?
I catch a whiff of panic.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
* Dr. Peterson’s account has since been reinstated, no explanation given.
** You can learn all this and more on YouTube itself — so the platform hasn’t been shut down as such. Instead, a new Artificial Intelligence will restrict videos that do not even break YouTube terms of service, removing Likes, Comments, and Search features.
2 replies on “Gatekeeping 2.0”
I’m discovering websites are eliminating comment sections, and the censoring being done whenever bloggers use key names like Obama or Soros, is really getting ridiculous! That is how the Establishment and the globalists maintain control of the populous, and that control must be broken!
I have yet to sign on to Twitter or Facebook. Many of the sites I used to comment on now use Disqus, and so I just read others’ comments. They are invaluable as there are many LOL moments. Laughter is good for my soul.