Social Media
Mind Control
How Big Tech Uses Complex Algorithms to Steer Societies and Create an Artificial Voting Bloc Under Their Control
By: David Deschesne
Editor/Publisher, Fort Fairfield Journal
April 7, 2021
Twitter, YouTube and Facebook are three of the largest social media companies in the world, with hundreds of millions, perhaps billions, of users. In their positions of power, the owners of these communication platform behemoths have inserted themselves into the collective conversation by using “fact checkers” to shadow ban news stories, label them as false information and dump them into the proverbial Orwellian Memory Hole never to be seen or discussed. These are not stories or communications that are promoting or encouraging illegal activity, no, those platforms were allowing that for BLM and Antifa throughout the summer and Fall of 2020. What’s getting censored and banned are stories specifically about COVID-19 and the vaccine that do not fit the establishment left-wing narrative, even if they’re written by credentialed medical professionals with years of experience. If the viewpoint goes astray from the establishment left wing authoritarian government control model, then it’s labeled as “False Information” by the “Fact Checkers” on Facebook and Twitter and its posts and shares simply don’t go through to the users they’re forwarded to. YouTube doesn’t flag a video as “False Information” like Facebook and Twitter do; they merely delete the video and put up a message that it “does not comply with YouTube community standards” or they don’t put it in their suggested videos queue. By doing this type of censorship, the platforms are effectively banning or discrediting that information and excluding it from the arena of ideas.
For example, last November I wrote a story citing a U.S. CDC report which showed of the COVID-19 case patients in their study, twenty times more reported wearing a face mask “often” or “always” in public than those COVID patients who reported “never” wearing a face mask. Yet, they all caught COVID-19.
Now, I do not have a Facebook account - and never have. I experimented with Twitter a few years ago and found it to be a complete waste of time so I stopped using it. But, one of my readers took a picture of that news article I wrote - which cited the U.S. CDC, quoted the numbers and provided the link to the CDC’s web page where that report can be found (that link is on the bottom of page three in this issue). The post of that story got shared on Facebook something like 12,000 times in two days. Since it was a picture, not text, the algorithms Facebook designed to throttle information it doesn’t agree with did not immediately key on the story. But, eventually that story did get flagged by the Facebook “fact checkers” as “False Information” and throttled back into oblivion. It was Memory Holed, as they say.
More recently, Dr. Martin Makary, a surgeon and professor at Johns Hopkins University wrote an Op-Ed in the Wall Street Journal stating his reasons why he thought the pandemic would be effectively over in the U.S. by the end of April because we will have reached ‘herd immunity’ at that point and we will be able to relax all of these draconian and ineffective restrictions now forced on us. His article was “fact checked” by Facebook and labeled as “Misleading” even though it was merely an opinion, written by a highly trained and experienced doctor and professor at Johns Hopkins who drew his numbers from a CDC estimate. His idea was quickly flagged by Facebook fact checkers who stated his article to “be misleading” merely because it did not conform to their world view. Those “fact checkers” then went on to state their opinion as if it were fact. Facebook then used its algorithm to drive the views of that article into the dirt where virtually nobody will see it unless they know it’s out there at WSJ and go look at it there. But, that was the whole point of social media - to share those ideas among users...But, not anymore.
As for Twitter, everyone should know by now that social media platform actually banned President Trump and deleted his account because they claim he “incited a riot” at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, when he did no such thing. But, Twitter is a private company, they made the decision to ban and then lost billions of dollars in value nearly overnight.
Now, some would argue that these social media platforms are privately owned companies and they should have the right to pick and choose what goes on their platforms. If you don’t like what they’re doing, simply go somewhere else and post your views (on quite likely another left-wing owned social media platform or an upstart conservative platform that has comparatively fewer users).
There are a couple of problems with that position that need to be addressed. First, these social media platforms, because they are being used by millions of people on a daily basis as a form of communication with each other in sharing experiences and ideas, have become in a way a Common Carrier - like a telephone company; it could be argued that they have become Public Utilities, too, like an Electric Company.
Imagine for a moment that you are having a conversation on your phone with a friend or family member when all of a sudden the audio goes blank and a pre-recorded message plays that informs you both that the “Information being discussed is false and misleading and will not be allowed to be shared on this phone service provider’s network.” What? Would you tolerate your phone company monitoring and censoring your private conversations? After three strikes against you, the phone company would then exercise the option to delete your account and no longer provide service to you simply because you were sharing ideas that are different than those held by the owners of the company. How about your power company monitoring your Email and web searching communications then shutting off your electricity and terminating your account because you were sharing information opposed to those views held by the owners of the power company?
Even though they are private companies, I don’t think many people would sit still for that for a minute. There would be a huge public outcry and I’m sure politicians would then get involved and make the whole thing worse - which is what they’re really good at, so don’t look to them.
Secondly, and more importantly, is the immediate and long-lasting effect these social media platforms have on the overall social gestalt. Consider for a moment that if millions of people are all sharing their thoughts on a social media platform that has algorithms designed to only allow one certain point of view to be shared while throttling back or otherwise discouraging and disenfranchising an opposing point of view. Those millions of users of that platform will then only be exposed to one position, one side of an argument. It won’t take long for that group of millions of people to adopt a shared mindset on a topic which is reinforced and ultimately cemented in their collective psyche by the endless reverberation of that idea in the echo chamber of their collective minds via seeking acceptance by the group on that social media platform. This is 21st century technocratic brainwashing at warp speed. Regardless of the topic or position, social media giants now have the power to sway public opinion and skew their perceptions on any subject in a way that conforms to the owners of that platform. Multiply that power by millions, or perhaps billions, of people and you have a political power never before seen in the history of the world. Those millions of people who have all been programmed to think a certain way, and have those programmed ideas reinforced by the groupthink of their peers (and the paid trolls), on social media become a de facto voting block. This voting block then is able to elect or reject politicians and ultimately cause legislation to be enacted that adversely affects everyone around them. All of this under the control of a form of shadow government that is what the owners of these social media platforms have become.
This form of social control of the public mindset was recently dubbed, “Digital Colonialism” where Big Tech social media platforms exercise quasi-governmental power to enforce their particular flavor of political correctness on populations all over the world irrespective, and often in defiance of countries’ laws and their national policies.
India and Australia recently pushed back against Facebook and said they would not be allowed to propagate their social media platform in their countries if they continue to censor speech and ideas in defiance of their laws that protect those acts.
There are some lesser known social media platforms to choose from. They are Parler - who was recently deplatformed by having their server space on Amazon shut down; MeWe and censorship-free video providers Rumble, Bitchute and Brighteon.
While freedom of choice will force a migration, all that will do is further polarize society and force them into ever more divisive voting blocs as the echo chambers of the left keep their users and the echo chambers of the right gain their own - with the two sides becoming increasingly unable, and programmed to be intolerant, to share their views and debate them reasonably in the arena of ideas. Paradoxically, the more we progress, the more we regress. This is the new, Digital Apartheid.
Welcome to the 21st century.
