Silicon Valley is yet again proving that they’re an anti-democratic monopoly, willing to ban, block, boot, and blunt the voice of democratically elected representatives.
Craig Kelly is their latest victim.
Facebook has banned the Australian Member of Parliament for breaching their COVID rules.
One of those posts in question was Kelly’s proposed bill to ‘Ban Domestic Passports’ within Australia.
ACL director Martyn Iles called the targeted ban, “big tech censorship”, noting that one of his “The Truth of It” videos have been censored and that when it comes to Facebook “he, himself, is on borrowed time.”
Iles has a good reason for thinking this way. Radical Leftist Jihadists spurred on by the collaborative cancellation of President Donald Trump, appear to love a book burning.
For instance, as Iles noted, Amazon’s ‘recent ban on one of the most carefully written scholarly books on transgenderism, by Dr Ryan T Anderson.’
In addition, Tik Tok ‘(without explanation) permanently banned PragerU’s Amala Ekpunobi, a young, African American, conservative woman whose content tends to be nothing short of excellent.’
The ACL director declared: they censor because they’re scared of ‘truth. Truth is exposed by analysis. Truth has the power to persuade people. It is hard to fight fair against truth.’
He then pointed out that ‘the woke worldview is built on a foundation of lies, which must be protected at all costs – especially the most fragile ones. Censorship is the only tool they have to fight truth. They dare not let it free, or argue with it.’
I’m going to add that the kings and queens of the information age seem determined to exert political power, where political power hasn’t been granted to them.
The technocratic Tower of Babel bubble, that is Facebook, and Twitter (et.al) are how people do business.
There is no opt-out clause. Ours is now truly a technological society.
Technocrats don’t seem to just want the world, they want to run it, and they’re on their way to owning you.
Many businesses use their platforms to communicate with employees, passing on vital information that affects the livelihoods of everyday people, living everyday lives.
The technocracy in California thrives on this co-dependent relationship. They are rulers of the governed, without the consent of the governed.
It’s an abusive relationship, trademarked by Big Tech’s collaborative effort to interfere in the 2020 United States election when they punished customers on their platforms for objecting to conscription into Silicon Valley’s predominantly Leftist groupthink paradigm.
The way they wield power through their sheltered, centralised hub betrays an arrogance not dissimilar to what Democrat Senator, J. William Fulbright, in 1966 called, ‘power confusing itself with virtue.’
Fulbright was lamenting his vote supporting the Democrat-led push to increase America’s involvement in Vietnam. He saw the ‘organised slaughter’ as an outworking of the ‘arrogance of power.’
The relevance is simple. For Fulbright, this was ‘welfare imperialism’; a big nation dictating their terms of existence onto a smaller nation.
In today’s geopolitical vernacular, it’s Communist China vs. the Free People of Hong Kong. Likewise, Communist China vs. the Republic of China (Taiwan).
By banning criticism, Big Tech follows the road of ‘exaggerated power’, where it ‘can admit no wrong-doing,’ because it’s too invested in an agreed-upon consensus, that demands ‘unquestioning support.’ (ibid)
Their COVID-19 wall of silence that bans alternative opinions from “unapproved” professionals, and its vetting system that ensures loyalty to the agreed-upon narrative is an expression of this ‘arrogance of power.’
This overthrow of elected representatives raises some important questions about where we go from here.
One possible way that Big Tech can work around their concerns about “fake news” content is by extending grace to the official accounts of our elected representatives.
Could something akin to parliamentary privilege be extended to elected representatives using social media?
I’m convinced it could. If Big Tech is serious about civil liberties, primarily freedom of expression and speech, such an extension is not only an appropriate application of grace towards elected representatives but it’s fast becoming a necessity.
The voice of the people, for the people should be protected.
Parliamentary privilege empowers this; it ‘refers to an immunity from the ordinary law, which is recognised by the law as a right of the houses and their members.’
As such, ‘parliamentary privilege exists for the purpose of enabling the houses of the Parliament to carry out effectively their functions.’
For example: ‘the primary functions of the (upper-senate; lower-representatives) houses are to inquire, to debate and to legislate.’
The sad reality is that, for all the bluster about being platforms for freedom of speech, Big Tech isn’t all that interested in being platforms for freedom of speech.
There can be, said Fulbright, ‘no solution to a problem until it is first acknowledged that there is a problem.’
It’s doubtful that the technocratic kings and queens of this new aristocracy are aware that the fault, as well as the remedy for it, lies with them.
J.W Fulbright, 1966. The Arrogance of Power Random House Publishing Group.
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