It seems we are living in the eye of the 1984 storm, proverbially speaking. The censorship tempest grows stronger as we attempt to battle our way through endless false facts, mainstream media abundance, and he says/she says arguments. The media team at AnonHQ are only human, we battle the same fights as our readers, and the fight isn’t always easy. We get it wrong sometimes. Call it being human.
But…
As the weeks pass, what is becoming more noticeable is a certain trend growing within social media platforms. Dare I say, a somewhat fascist? trend, want for a better word.
Say keywords and face a ban – no matter the platform you use. Ask for an explanation… you are given very general references that require a law degree to sift through. Bully someone direct, however, and how many times do those reported people face account cancellation? Come on, how many?
If you claim yourself part of the “Anonymous collective,” face a ban. There have been several bans – particularly those working to help children with #opExposeCPS, according to one source.
Google certain things – even from a VPN service with the bells and whistles, amongst other IT security in place – face a ban from your mother country. Don’t believe me? See the photo evidence below from my own personal experience.
Was Orwell Right?
Orwell once said that “The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.”
The pervasiveness of censorship has done just that. But we are not just altering our history books, we’re altering our today, week by week, hour by hour. In this fast paced world, the fragile truth is fettered amongst the thick scattering of lies. How do we shovel through this, when investigative journalism is fast becoming a relic – when the most talented writers are too fearful to pursue the truth?
I’m not talking about the Middle East, Russia or North Korea. I’m talking about the West; Australia, the United States, the UK. We are tempered by our own arrogance because we refuse to admit we have a problem. We refuse to stand up to the problem, and when we do, we face bans. When we take to the streets to protest, we face arrest. When we dare to voice an alternate opinion, we face public humiliation, face losing our jobs…We. Face. Silence.
What do we understand as fact when we examine the “War on Terror?” I know it happened on 9/11. I know there’s a 28-page document the Obama Administration is reluctant to release…
What do we know as fact when we hear about CIA involvement in the Middle East? What do we know as fact when examining the details of ISIS, the Muslim religion, and the terrorists supposedly caught? I know when we question it, we get a lot of trolls and sometimes bans…regardless of the platform.
We guess. We collate information. We try and connect dots. We hunt out sources that are now called whistleblowers. Why are they even called whistleblowers? Because they want to tell the public the truth? And it’s illegal. When was the last time you wholely trusted your government’s version of “transparency?”
What is our understanding of last week, let alone last year?
I’m from the West, and I have a Problem…
How many have heard about this month’s la Nuit debout movement in France? I’m hazarding not many; and this is my contention with censorship.
France has experienced one of the largest Occupy Movements we have seen in a very long time. Where’s the media coverage in the NYTimes, The Age in Australia, and other major media players? Why isn’t it front page news?
A source from France sent me this:
“Just sending you few article because I thought you might be interested in reading them. Remember when I told you about the next protest for the 31 of march? the one against the labour law, well after that some people decided to not go home, it’s started in Paris, they called that “la nuit debout”, basically they stayed up all night at the place de la république, I think at the beginning it was more of another way to protest, but it grow to be something new. Now it’s being 6 nights of “la nuit debout”, more people are joining, and it’s not only in Paris, but in others city as well, Lyon joined on Tuesday, 300 peoples were supposed to gather at the place Mazagran but because of police officers they couldn’t, so they gather under the pont de la guillotère. Well, now it’s no more a protest, they aren’t protesting the labour law anymore, although they opposed it too, but they are opposing the whole government now.”
At the time, it was sent to me because where I am, unless I have prior knowledge to hunt this down, I have no idea of its occurrence courtesy of Murdoch media enterprises.
“It’s a new movement that don’t believe in this system anymore, it was not organized by union, or any political party or organization, it was created by the people. They don’t claim to belong to any group/organization, or political party. They are here to speak up against the government corruption and abuse of power, they want a new system which will be more fair, they are here to speak for the minorities, they want freedom and a better life for everyone, they have no leaders, doesn’t that remind you of something? they are anonymous, that’s why I always say anonymous = the people, and those people represent the idea of anonymous.
I tried to find as many articles as I could to give you an inside of la nuit debout…”
People in the hundreds of thousands take a stand in one of the world’s most beloved countries… and we hear barely a scrap. Why is that? Ask yourself.
The next protest in France is timed for the 28th April. The “Global Day of Action is May 15th, which I call upon anyone frustrated with censorship, to take a stand; but we haven’t really heard about that either.
Can anyone say ‘censorship’ or buck the system without facing a ban these days? If we don’t self-censor, the social media platforms do it for us. Then we start to second guess ourselves, then we become silent.
How free are we really?
*The content of this article is opinion of the author and not necessarily that of AnonHQ.
Sources: Private Sources, The Guardian, The Independent, nuitdebout.fr.
This article (Anonymous Accounts Banned, Censorship on Social Media and in Life: The Taboo Discussion) is a free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to the author AnonWatcher and AnonHQ.com.
Excellent article. What gets forgotten is that “signing in” to a website in order to post a comment is also a form of censorship. We are essentially asking a corporation for the right to express ourselves. The right to use your 1st Amendment is now in the hands of gatekeeper corporations like Disqus, Facebook, Google, Yahoo, etc. It is shocking that so little discussion is made about this. One reasonis that it is seamless, it is simply accepted by the entire planet that one must be beholden to a corporation in order to comment on a website. This form of apartheid, where those who won’t sign-in are silenced has been accepted by the majority. In a way to combat this and bring to to attention and focus, I propose a rating system that EFF and Anonymous could create, where sites like this one, which do not require permission from a corporation to post an opinion, are made for websites, and that it could catch on as a meme that would push websites to foster more permissive free speech policies. In addition, I also suggest that the inane need to submit an email address on this site and others like it also disappear.
Thank you for your comments about the article. As for the email suggestion, ironically, I’m not entirely sure if the website permits the omission of an email (I’m no techie though). But you make some valid points, which our media faction will take on board.
They won’t let me use my VPN on FB, blocked me under the pretence I’ve been hacked so I have to run their selected antivirus scanner even though I already have protection.
“It’s a new movement that don’t believe in this system anymore, it was not organized by union, or any political party or organization, it was created by the people. They don’t claim to belong to any group/organization, or political party. They are here to speak up against the government corruption and abuse of power, they want a new system which will be more fair”
Well and good, but could you imagine if that “le nuit debout” movement were simply to legalize cannabis??? Think how hugely it would benefit the economy?? Why are the French so squeamish about a major issue that is staring them in the face?? Get the word out: FRANCE MUST PROTEST LEGALIZE CANNABIS.
I’m sorry, but as much as I am for legalizing cannabis, our freedoms of speech, our liberty, and very much so, our equality are far more pressing issues in this instance. Without these freedoms, we’d all be smoking weed just to escape our Big Brother. Let’s tackle the big issues first.
Given the latest examples running through the mills of investigative journalism, criticising the UK government or any form of protest is effectively due to become a criminal offence.
Under the guise of tackling Domestic extremism.
Quoted directly from the legislation courtesy of the canary.co
“Domestic Extremism relates to the activity of groups or individuals who commit or plan serious criminal activity motivated by a political or ideological viewpoint.”
“That the conduct involves the use of violence, results in substantial financial gain or is conduct by a large number of persons in pursuit of a common purpose.”
As stated in the article, the key points
“conduct by a large number of persons in pursuit of a common purpose”
And
“motivated by a political or ideological viewpoint.”
Combined could cover and be applied to anything from anti-austerity protests through to a standard church sermon.
If it offends the government or the 1% expect to fall foul of this, regardless who is morally right or wrong.
here’s to hoping it won’t get through.
“Motivated by a political or ideological viewpoint” can be carried across any group of two or more people. Unfortunately, the new “rulebook” has been written with a ‘any difference of opinion must be quashed’ in mind, including Anonymous.
To stand united is of utmost importance.
Thank you, I’ll be extending my research to these legislations in coming weeks.
Any “intention” law is illigal. When such laws are in force, dictature is in force, just because you can never demostate nor deny your “intention” and the legislator can pretend you have any.
People have forgotten that they hold the control of power… not the governments or corporations. The problem is that people have forgotten to speak as ONE.
If most people stopped going to the movies.. watch the prices drop.
……………stop using facebook.. watch the the rules change.
Governments NEED people to use facebook, to do their collective intelligence gathering and prying into peoples lives. Start using encrypted chats watch Whatsapp introduce encrypted chats (Whatsapp is ofcourse owned by the CIA/NSA errr I mean facebook.. but ofcourse its not open sourced)
Unfortunately the collective ‘people’ have been dumbed down and fed so much bullsh*t that they believe they are powerless and impotent. How do you beat an opponent stronger than you?… convince them they are weak.
Very well articulated and written.
Unfortunately the “brand” Anonymous is also being misused, if one can say that, since anonymous is no one and every one, but to name an example, a german facebook page by the name “anonymous.kollektiv”, which has more then a million likes, was taken over by a single admin who managed to kick out the other admins and since then started spreading racist, xenophobic content and shared mainly content from a similarly oriented publishing company. Nothing you can do about it, I guess…