Coronavirus

[astfgyl]

You may go back taking it, as it looks like the only freedom of speech in the future will be inside your head....

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/may/02/youtube-deletes-coronavirus-conspiracy-theorist-david-ickes-channel

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/may/01/coronavirus-facebook-removes-page-conspiracy-theorist-david-icke

Now I don't agree with this fella at all, but the fact remains he should have a right to talk shite if he wants and I think this is an extremely worrying development. Welcome to China lads

[Scáthach]

 

I used to love doing acid, too.

[Airneanach]

no virus, no economy, no family, no community, no culture, no future other than the one we choose for ourselves, the 'we' in this case not being you or me.

You should do t-shirts for the Manic Street Preachers.

Also Icke is a massive, massive shitehouse. The 'reality is only perception, and our perception is limited' framework is all prosaic, agreeable fluff but he's also a massive apologist for homeopathy and thinks doctors are kind of pretend.

It's not even his big stuff that irks me. Go on away and believe the queen is a lizard all you want. Saturn is a mind control matrix? Sure. It's the fact that he apes every other single moronic view out there as well, like a Smash Hits collection of conspiracy loons, and some people who really ought to know better lap it up and give him the time of day.

Chucking him from social media is lunacy, though. It plays so well into what he's doing. Bloke and his followed must be chuffed.

[astfgyl]

Oh I fully disagree with David Icke I'm putting that on record here now, but this is an extremely depressing turn of events no matter how it's dressed up. We can't be trusted to make up our own minds that he is talking shit anymore, we just won't be allowed to hear it by our benevolent overseers.

[Juggz]

Overseers? Fuck sake, lad. Youtube, facebook, instagram, twitter and whatever else are all owned by private companies with no obligation to give anyone a voice. If some mongo starts making the advertisers twitchy of course they will drop them. Money talks and bullshit walks, as Bobbi Flekman sagely counseled.

If you want a voice, if you want to give Icke and whoever else a voice, start your own social media platform. No-one is stopping you.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

Imagine being in the position where China - CHINA! - has the moral high ground and is beating down on you about dishonesty!

https://twitter.com/XHNews/status/1255734356728922113?s=19

[astfgyl]

I have no interest in giving anybody a voice to be honest but I think that in principle he should be allowed to talk shite all he wants and we can all make up our own minds about it and most sane and rational people will be repelled from what he says. The problem here is that social media has become so ingrained into society that it is many folks only source of information about anything at all, so if only the accepted line of thinking is the one everyone is exposed to, there will be no real freedom of speech anymore. I wouldn't get bogged down in my choice of wording to describe something, try and see through that to the actual point I'm making. In the near future you won't hear any dissenting voice whatsoever and won't we all be safe then. And I actually think that what he says could be detrimental to reason if it was to believed on a mass scale, but the principle still stands. This is only the beginning of this sort of thing and I can't see how it won't get a whole lot worse.

How do you feel about it yourself, leaving aside disagreeing with my (perhaps poor, now I see it could be picked at) choice of wording for a moment? Do you honestly agree that there should be a curtailment on freedom of speech? I understand that they are advertising revenue driven private companies and yes they do have the right but we are in seriously dangerous territory here. It's like the holocaust denier thing, they are obviously (to me anyway) off their fucking game to be denying it, but I disagree with it being a crime to say so. The regular person could police that all by themselves by not believing it based on what is presented by both sides of the issue, just as I don't believe the world is being run by lizard people or that 5G is the cause of CV-19 just because David Icke says so.

[Juggz]

When has there ever been free speech? Ever?

[astfgyl]

Seriously? Is that supposed to be some sort of riposte to my comment?  I ask what you thought of the links I posted there and you ask when has there ever been free speech. And actually it isn't swashbuckling I was looking to get into at all, I honestly wanted to hear what somebody else other than myself would think of it. I don't know if there ever was freedom of speech in any time ever, but I still think this is an affront to the idea of it. I do think the idea of free speech is extremely important for any forward thinking society whether we have ever truly had it or not.

So what do you think of freedom of speech being taken away from the people you disagree with? An honest question for anyone

[Juggz]

I avoid the cesspit of social media as much as possible (two music forums aside) and, therefore, don't see it as a medium for hearing alternate opinions. In fact, the main reason I killed my brief stay on Facebook years ago is because it was so easy to turn it into an agreement bubble. It's a fucking pox with nothing resembling free expression and/or a means of hearing alternate opinions by design. All these social media portals are designed to show you things you're interested in. They'll play videos automatically, they'll animate the gifs and the army of psychologists they employ against you will work exclusively to keep you stimulated and not getting too upset that you move to another site. The longer you stay on, the more advertising you're exposed to. That is the only reason these things exist. They don't want you seeing things which you disagree with because you're more likely to go somewhere else, which is bad for business. They are nothing to do with free speech. I cannot express that strongly enough, no matter how obvious it is. That being said, who is stopping you saying whatever you want to say? You're taking umbrage at a privately owned platform deciding they don't want content from certain users. That's many things, but it's not an attack on free speech. You can say what you want as long as the owner of the medium you're expressing it on doesn't get too pissed off with you for saying it. That's easy to grasp.

Again, I stand by my previous post. When has there ever been truly free speech? Has there ever been truly free speech? I would be in the "no" camp, there. You are always tailoring your words for the audience you're talking to, whether you are conscious of it or not. Facebook and youtube are not free speech platforms. Do not ever mistake them for that.

[Juggz]

So what do you think of freedom of speech being taken away from the people you disagree with? An honest question for anyone

The question is really

"So what do you think of the cost-free platform for speech being taken away from the people you disagree with?"

Nobody is stopping Icke from saying what he wants, but the owners of a private website are completely within their rights to fuck him off out of it. Clearly, he is not being restricted from implementing his own platform for conveying his thoughts, right? If Joe Public is too fucking lazy to wipe the drool off their chin long enough to follow him to wherever he goes next, that is hardly an attack on freedom, surely?

[Juggz]

Of course, maybe this topic is better off being diverted into a thread of its own? There's probably enough to justify it, it's an interesting debate.

[astfgyl]

I agree with everything you say there about the social media platforms themselves and I honestly come here so we can have a bit of to and fro like this without the concept of likes or shares or targeted adverts in one place at least. I would like to point out to further the point that I agree with you that I haven't been one for posting or liking or sharing anything whatsoever on FB for years, I don't post on twitter or instagram or youtube as I feel just like you have described about them.

And again just because there has never been truly free speech it doesn't mean it shouldn't be the ideal. Now you mention it, I am in the no camp as to whether free speech has ever been a thing vs a concept but again I don't think that means we shouldn't strive for it. Like it seems to me that you might be in disagreement with me here about this but I appreciate the fact you can say it and who knows you might even make me feel different than I do about that by what you say, so it is definitely worth reading, but imagine a world where the dissenting voice can never be heard. This will extend beyond social media very soon if it hasn't already. Wouldn't you like to hear all sides of things even if they are full of shit, but shouldn't you be trusted as a rational creature to make up your own mind? I would love world peace, does the fact that there has never truly been world peace make it any less desirable or should we just accept that conflict is permanent and move on?

Again I ask would you agree with censorship of those whom you don't agree with? What do you actually think about David Icke's pages being removed from general public consumption or if not removed, made a lot more difficult to track down?

Social Media will be first, the entire internet next, the world of media in general will soon follow. Icke is an easy target as everyone knows he is a fool, but where to after that? We all rely on information to be served to us, if there is a war in say Mexico tomorrow would you like to hear about all aspects of it or just the one side will do fine for you and "fuck it I will understand it as I am told to understand it" because that is how this is going to go. So what if what Icke says is wrong, this will be the tip of the iceberg regarding the sterilisation of what we hear. I knew from the beginning that this virus would be taken advantage of in so many ways that will be far from our interest, and all in the name of our safety.

Edit: I saw the new posts warning before posting but fuck if I was typing all that again. It could be it's own thread to be fair

[Juggz]

My point is that Icke has not been censored. He has simply been removed from a privately owned website. His own website is still up and running, no? His thoughts are still available to  anyone who cares to look for them, right? So where is the censorship? It has never, in the history of humanity, taken less effort to get your opinion - no matter how detached from reality - exposed to the greatest amount of people, ever.

The real problem is most of the western world has devolved into a rut of getting most of their information spoon-fed from just three privately owned companies with their own agendas and most people seem to be either too lazy, too disinterested or too thick to bother their hole tondo anything about it. That, to me, is what is truly alarming about this situation.

I mean, even the Nazis went to the trouble and expense to set up Der Angriff and got off their arses to get their bullshit out to the people. We’re lamenting the fact that some cunts have to exercise their thumb here. Seriously.

[mugz]

My point is that Icke has not been censored. He has simply been removed from a privately owned website. His own website is still up and running, no? His thoughts are still available to  anyone who cares to look for them, right? So where is the censorship? It has never, in the history of humanity, taken less effort to get your opinion - no matter how detached from reality - exposed to the greatest amount of people, ever.

The real problem is most of the western world has devolved into a rut of getting most of their information spoon-fed from just three privately owned companies with their own agendas and most people seem to be either too lazy, too disinterested or too thick to bother their hole tondo anything about it. That, to me, is what is truly alarming about this situation.

I mean, even the Nazis went to the trouble and expense to set up Der Angriff and got off their arses to get their bullshit out to the people. We're lamenting the fact that some cunts have to exercise their thumb here. Seriously.

Icke is one of their spokespeople anyway, a construct like alex jones, but nearly everyone is a construct. It's all cages within cages, but if you can help a few people really understand how bad things are, you've at least made a tiny step.

They do ridiculous rituals and plays to make us all scared, to make us focus on things that serve to distract us and drain our energy.  Im not sure there's any hope, any escape, or just more simulated realities, or even if we agree to play these mortal, not really mortal, games because floating around disembodied in an infinite void is so unbearable.

There is no virus, but what there is, is much worse and serves to point out just how complicated reality is.