Big Tech has been slowly moving toward complete totalitarian control and surveillance of the internet for several years now. Emboldened after de-platforming, de-monitizing, and censoring millions and manipulating search results and news feeds during the last election without any consequence, they are now simplifying and broadening their approach. This week, Facebook banned news sharing in Australia in a show of complete technological dominance over its government and people.
Gone are the days when Big Tech had to strategically and surgically nudge people and de-platform them in small numbers, citing vague or non-existent guidelines. Now they simply ban the news (and state health departments) from sharing their content when governments dare to create laws they do not like.
“Google threatened to shut down operations in Australia in January after a bill moved forward that forces the internet giant to pay news publishers.
Google and Facebook believed this was unfair.
So they announced they may close down their operations Down Under.
On Thursday Facebook followed up on their threats and blocked Australians from viewing and sharing news on the platform because of proposed laws in the country to make digital giants pay for journalism.
According to CBS News Australian publishers can continue to publish news content on Facebook, but links and posts can’t be viewed or shared by Australian audiences, the U.S.-based company said in a statement.”
So, Australian news can no longer share their content.
Of course, this comes after the election in which Facebook used the puppet new media to funnel mostly pro-Biden stories and anti-Trump stories to the masses, But, now they no longer have a use for them in the current form. And, while banning the dissemination of news is bad on its own, totalitarians and democrats often forget though are the unintended consequences to their actions. Or perhaps their sociopathy prevents them from caring:
“…in the process, Facebook blocked readers from access to The Bureau of Meteorology, state health departments, the Western Australian opposition leader, and charities as a result of the company’s wide-ranging ban on sharing or viewing news.
They go on to quote:
“On Thursday morning Facebook began preventing Australian news sites from posting, while also stopping Australian users from sharing or viewing content from any news outlets, both Australian and international.
The social media giant said it made the decision in response to the news media bargaining code currently before the Senate, which would force Facebook and Google to negotiate with news companies for payment for content.
While the ban was only meant to target Australian news publishers, dozens of pages run by key government agencies, community pages, union pages, charity organisations and politicians have also been hit by the news ban.”
So, Big Tech–which donated billions to democrats in the previous election and intentionally skews search/news results to make people unknowingly hate conservative candidates, is now telling the little guy not to organize for bargaining rights to their content.
Remember when Democrats at least pretended to be for the little guy and the union? Remember when small unions did at least some kind of good for their workers?
Big Tech is begging governments to intervene. They want heavy laws and regulations to further enshrine them in government policy and crush any new competition from being able to navigate the chopping 20 foot waves that would be generated in those new legal waters.
How did we get here?
We aren’t in Australia, but in America the best solution is revision or destruction of Section 230 which somehow has been interpreted to grant them both publisher and platform status. This is very bad.
Roughly speaking, ‘publishers’ (like newspapers) curate and edit the content on their services. Therefore, they can censor people because they are considered the authors of the content on their services, but they are also legally responsible for all of the content on their services because they are considered the authors, in some sense. Therefore, they can be sued for publishing illegal content.
Platforms on the other hand are treated like bulletin boards; they can’t usually be sued for allowing illicit content on their platforms because they are not the curators of the content. It would be similar to suing a TV manufacturer if someone played illegal content on the TV.
For some reason, Big Tech has been inexplicably afforded the benefits of both platform and publisher while not having to accept the responsibilities of either. This allows them to curate, edit, censor, and remove people while facing no legal ramifications. That needs to change. The instant it does, Big Tech dominoes would fall as lawsuits mounted and a more constitutional digital landscape reemerged.
We believe Australia should do something similar, until then we continue to snowball downhill toward the global totalitarian Great Reset.
Perhaps Facebook is upset because some Australian news is highly critical of China. In fact, Australian Sky News had great fair coverage of the stolen election in 2020 until after the January 6th capitol unrest.
Do you think this is payback by Big Tech for their insolence and attacks against China and The Great Reset??
Nah…couldn’t be.
