Deplatforming political and social opponents is a ubiquitous power bling in the U.S.A. these days. Ye (the artist formerly known as Kanye West) recently was deplatformed by the corporate world including the German company Adidas because of his free expression of ideas that corporate said were anti-Semitic. Ye didn’t back down or apologize for making so many statements about Jews.
https://www.adl.org/resources/blog/unpacking-kanye-wests-antisemitic-remarks
Because the internet of things is a collection of privately owned (mostly) servers that plug in and corporations that own social media sites generally free expression is limited to statements that don’t offend the profit and power agenda of the corporate world. If an individual’s statements or posts are antipathetic to the corporate guideline the offender is then ‘deplatformed” after a few warnings to kow tow in some cases.
Congressional deplatforming occurs through elections mostly, unlike corporate deplatforming that is in no way democratic. Because Congresspersons curry favor with the rich and corporations for their own benefit the Congress hasn’t developed platforms that citizens can post their ideas on without fear of being deplatformed for failing to be a sycophant of those with deep pockets. That is one of the reasons why the nation’s political system is becoming a democracy-republic more symbolically than factually as it morphs into corporatocracy and plutocratic hybridization.
Ye’s ideas about Jews aren’t like those of Hitler’s in Mein Kampf. They are instead expressions from the school of wrong ideas that arose culturally among poor American blacks I suppose. Ye said that blacks are the real Jews and the true descendants of the twelve tribes of Israel. I believe Elisha Mohammad expressed comparably wrong ideas about the origin of the white ‘race’ through selective breeding long ago. The expression of wrong or inaccurate ideas shouldn’t result in deplatforming. For one thing corporate censors sometime aren’t too bright and would know a linguistic plosive from a labial consonant, vellar fricative or explosive like C4. Because power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely the social media reflects corporate values for concentrating wealth preponderantly rather than being a marketplace of ideas for a democratic society that is interested in progress, efficiency, and infrastructural change to adapt intelligent technique to challenges.
If wrong ideas are sufficient to have one’s writing ‘deplatformed’ those ideas must also be politically popular to be repressed already. Because corporate yet has a lot of people producing greenhouse gas global warming deniers aren’t being deplatformed though their ideas are wrong. If wrong ideas alone were the test for deplatforming the Congress itself would risk deplatforming. Adolph Hitler would have deplatformed Ye for being black and being a Jew (or claiming to be). If Ye was alive in the 1940s he could have gone to Auschwitz unless he denied being a Jew. Ironically the German corporation that deplatformed Ye has more in common with Hitler than the founders of the United States that respected free speech and felt it was a necessity for democracy.
Speaker Pelosi’s husband was a victim recently of a deplatforming attempt by someone with antipathetic political ideas presumably. If another Mission Impossible is made it could have the topic of deplatforming as a plot at the highest level and that might seem a conspiracy too far. Deplatforming is the corporate delete key that the mafia might wish to have. "Alright Bugsy; you gonna go out and deplatform that guy; see?"
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