Rogue journalist. Bogan socialist. Anarcho-psychonaut. Guerrilla poet. Utopia prepper.
I was going to write another article today about a different topic, but I backed down because I didn’t think I could deliver the kind of fiery, forceful, unmitigated argument it would need to be without risking getting banned from social media and blogging platforms.
The
article I was planning on writing, which you’ll just have to imagine
now, would have been titled “ ‘Assange Can Leave Whenever He Wants!’ No,
Idiot, He Can’t.” The feature image was going to be a screen shot of a
blue-checkmarked empire loyalist named Greg Olear tweeting
the infuriatingly dopey argument that Assange is free to just waltz out
the embassy doors whenever he wants, so therefore he isn’t actually
being imprisoned by an Orwellian power establishment for publishing
authentic documents about powerful people. Never mind the fact that you
can say exactly the same thing about literally anyone under political
asylum; they are all free to leave the political asylum they’ve been
granted at any time, and pointing this out is just describing the thing
that political asylum is. Never mind the fact that a UN panel ruled that Assange is being arbitrarily detained by the threat of imprisonment. Never mind that the same US government which tortured Chelsea Manning is currently openly pursuing Assange’s arrest
because of his publications, making the assertion that he’s “free to
leave” the same as saying he’s “free” to jump off a cliff. People don’t
want to believe that their government imprisons journalists, so whenever
Assange is in the news you see this argument making the rounds.
It
would have been a firecracker of an article, but when it came time to
write it, I backed down. I’d generally rather scrap an article than
write something tepid and boring that won’t make any impact, so the risk
of losing access to my platforms outweighed my desire to write what I’d
planned on writing.
I’ve been self-censoring more and more lately, especially since the latest round of coordinated cross-platform silencing of multiple alternative media outlets the other day. Back in August I had my Twitter account temporarily deleted
when I said the world will be better off without John McCain and a
bunch of #Resistance accounts mass reported me; Twitter cited “abusive
behavior” as its justification. The only reason my account was restored
was because there was a large objection
from many high-profile journalists and activists who understand the
dangers of internet censorship, and I’m not willing to gamble that I’d
get that lucky should something similar happen again. Being able to
disrupt establishment narratives on a high-traffic website like Twitter
outweighs the benefits of speaking in an unmitigated way.
And
that ultimately is precisely the point. If the social engineers can
make an example of a few dissident voices in the public eye, everyone
else will rein in their own speech and behavior to avoid the same fate.
The overall effect of this phenomenon is actually far more effective in
suppressing dissident speech than the overt censorship is by itself,
because self-censorship actually silences exponentially more
anti-establishment opinions. For every one voice you crack down on
overtly, a thousand more silence themselves out of self-preservation,
not saying things they would otherwise say and not doing things they
would otherwise do.
Meanwhile
empire loyalists know that they can consistently get away with saying
anything they want with total impunity. The other day for example I criticized the fawning media accolades that professional Atlantic Council propagandist Eliot Higgins has been receiving lately, and he responded by calling me “Grotbags”, an obese witch character
from a nineties children’s television show. The joke being, you see,
that I am overweight, and I am also a woman, so I am therefore similar
to the character Grotbags. Ha ha ha. Eliot has been repeating this hilarious joke for months with zero consequences. He also made headlines
back in June with his repeated public invitation for people who
disagree with him on Twitter to suck his balls, also with zero
consequences.
After
my August Twitter suspension a #Resistance account publicly doxxed me,
posting my home address, phone number and other information. I didn’t
make a public ordeal out of it at the time because I obviously didn’t
want to draw attention to it, but I did report it because I wanted it
deleted. I was not expecting Twitter Support to reject my report,
especially after they had me jump through a bunch of hoops to prove that
I did in fact live where the doxxer was saying I lived, but they did.
“We
understand that you might come across content on Twitter that you
dislike or find offensive,” Twitter wrote back. “However, after
investigating the reported content we found it was not in violation of
Twitter’s private information policy. As a result, it won’t be removed
at this time.”
I see this routinely across all platforms; some accounts act without any fear of consequences, others seem primed for hair-trigger suspension. The bias is distinctly slanted in the favor of those who support CIA/CNN narratives and attack anyone who speaks out of alignment with the agendas of the US-centralized empire.
So
while we are mitigating our speech more and more, the Eliot Higginses
of the new media environment consistently get away with all manner of
abusive behavior without any repercussions. We’re fighting a media war
in which we are not just outnumbered and outgunned, but are increasingly
forced to fight with one arm tied behind our backs. The only thing we
have going for us at this point is that authenticity is attractive and
oligarchic funding can’t buy creativity or inspiration.
So
anyway, there’s my confession that I have been caving to
self-censorship to avoid being de-platformed. Rather than denying it, I
think it’s best that we all admit to it when we do it and call it what
it is, because it’s an unseen part of the people’s media rebellion that
is generally overlooked and under-appreciated. I haven’t really figured
out what to do about it beyond that, but in my experience drawing the
light of attention to these things is always a good idea.
________________________
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