The media only cares about free speech for the MEDIA. Not you, not us, not anyone else. We saw this front and center yesterday when Elon Musk put in an offer to buy Twitter. Our pals in the media lost their freaking MINDS over the idea of the little people they despise having the ability to be heard on the tech giant.
Finally.
Max Boot was especially obnoxious, railing on the idea and then going into victim-mode when people called him out for it. We actually wrote about him THREE TIMES yesterday because he was just that obnoxious. Note, we’ve only written about a handful of people more than twice in one day … and it’s not a good thing when we do it, for the person we’re writing about.
Glenn Greenwald pointed out how gross this behavior was (and then some) in a pretty epic thread.
Take a gander:
Yesterday was a flagship day in corporate media. It was the day they were forced to explicitly state what has long been clear: they not only favor censorship but desperately crave and depend on it.
Even if Musk doesn't buy Twitter, never forget what yesterday revealed.
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) April 15, 2022
Flagship day in corporate media, and not in a good way.
In US culture, we're inculcated from childhood that censorship is bad. So of course nobody — especially journalists — wants to say: "I favor censorship."
That's why they need euphemisms like "content moderation": to pretend it's about bots, abuse, etc. rather than ideology.
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) April 15, 2022
It’s sort of like how people support abortion – they call it ‘choice.’
Everyone knows they are lying. Nobody cares about Twitter censoring bots or spam. That's not what this is about.
The social media censorship people care about is 100% ideological: banning dissent on COVID, the Biden emails, culture war debates, etc. That's what's at stake.
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) April 15, 2022
Yup. It is 100% ideological and an uneven playing field for ideas and content in general. And the Leftist media wants to keep it that way.
Let's put it this way:
On Google/YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, you are free to say the 2000 and 2016 elections were stolen and fraudulent. You can't say that about 2020.
Before the 2020 election, you weren't allowed to post reporting on the Biden emails.
It's all ideological.
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) April 15, 2022
What he said.
Throughout the COVID pandemic, you weren't allowed to question the efficacy of cloth masks. You weren't allowed to interrogate the origins of the virus. You weren't allowed to debate vaccines or lockdowns. No dissent from Fauci/WHO was allowed.
The censorship is 100% political.
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) April 15, 2022
Even Fauci has admitted the lockdowns are to be used to ‘encourage’ vaccination.
You're allowed to spread any lies, propaganda and disinformation you want if it advances the Ukrainian cause (i.e., the US/NATO cause), but will be instantly banned if you say anything that challenges that on the ground of "Russia disinformation." This is all explicit.
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) April 15, 2022
You’re Russia-friendly and a fan of Putin if you question the Ukraine narrative at all.
Yup.
Censorship of conservatives gets most attention because it's so common, but censorship of anti-establishment leftists is also frequent: any dissident can be banned.
Pretending this is about bots or spam is fraudulent. This censorship is about control of political information.
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) April 15, 2022
Any dissident can be banned.
Think about how damn scary that is for just a moment.
Social media was heralded as an innovation that would liberate individuals from centralized control by the state and oligarchical power over their speech.
It has become the exact opposite: the most powerful tool of information control and speech constraints ever devised.
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) April 15, 2022
And that’s why Elon wants to buy Twitter.
To FIX IT.
How dumb do you have to be to believe that journalists – who work at Bloomberg and the Bezos-owned WPost or Comcast or CNN – are worried about billionaires controlling media (🤣).
They're only petrified that the *wrong* billionaire, one who may not censor for them, might reign.
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) April 15, 2022
What he said. The yahoos whining about rich people owning media outlets and big tech? HELLO, who do you think owns them NOW?! Saudi Arabian princes who hate freedom of speech, that’s who.
— Aurelian of Rome ☪️ (@AurelianofRome) April 15, 2022
THERE it is.
Yes, and not just corporate media but also Robert Reich and Max Boot and "establishment elites" generally.
— Ross Kaminsky (@Rossputin) April 15, 2022
True freakin’ story.
Especially Max Boot who was more than willing to show his fascist colors over and over and over again yesterday.
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