authoritarian

Below are some excerpts from a stunning article from CatholicVote.org.  It is astonishing to me that so many people willingly give up their freedom of speech and still trust the government and Big Tech to censor their information feeds.  I wonder if these people have either forgotten their history or were never taught the history of totalitarian regimes.  Time for people to read (or re-read) George Orwell’s 1984. (see here for historical context).

Nearly half of U.S. adults now want the government restricting false information online, even if it means giving up their own freedoms to access and publish content. But the majority of them want big tech to do it.

Among respondents who gave their political affiliation, 65 percent of Democrats and only 28 percent of Republicans favored government censorship of online information. Fully 76 percent of Democrats and only 37 percent of Republicans said the tech companies themselves should censor the content.

Commenting on this political disparity, journalist Luke Thompson, who co-hosts the podcast Constitutionally Speaking, wrote on twitter: “This shift towards censorship is driven entirely by a dramatic, authoritarian lurch among Democrats.”

Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Glenn Greenwald, a first amendment lawyer, echoed this concern about authoritarianism: “This is what the crusade by corporate media & liberals for more online censorship has fostered: a population where 50% say *the government* should censor the internet in the name of stopping disinformation. They’ve trained people to be authoritarians, craving state censorship,” Greenwald tweeted.

Lisa Johnston, a Kansas-based academic and former U.S. Senate candidate simply tweeted on Friday of the widening partisan divide on this issue: “CRAZY! I’m old enough to remember when being Liberal meant you were FOR free speech.”

For full article go to:  Nearly Half of Americans Want Government Regulating Fake News Online, but Most Want Big Tech Doing It – CatholicVote org  Aug. 20, 2021