While Tumblr has a user base that is largely liberal, it’s not a total monopoly. Some conservatives are still using the site, although in the face of apparent growing bellicosity.
Many social media outlets have become tilted in a more liberal direction as of late, policing their users, and content posted to their platforms, according to specious definitions of “hate speech”, “fear mongering”, “propaganda”, and divisiveness aimed at undermining “democratic values”. Towards that end, they are even bringing on other social sites with sometimes spurious content and liberal organizations like the SPLC to define and police such contraband, which is apparently the sort of path that tumblr is taking, only their approach appears to be home-grown.
Governments are even on board with this as the Russiagate scandal continues to rage into an ever growing number of sectors, worldwide, as if they haven’t been engaged in spying on social networks for well over a decade, now telling us that our speech is free, but we can’t talk about political issues that they consider “divisive”, which is anything that controverts the Left apparently, because it supposedly advances the interests of foreign governments who want to subvert our democracy.
Recently, one user of the increasingly conservative dominated social media platform Gab related his experience with tumblr, as it deleted his account because of content that he followed or reposted as allegedly being “affiliated with Russia”:
#Tumblr (yes, I know) just sent me an e-mail claiming that they deleted some accounts I had followed, or posts that I had liked or re-blogged because they were found to have been “affiliated” with #Russia. Or something along those lines:
we uncovered and terminated 84 accounts linked to #InternetResearchAgency or #IRA (a group closely tied to the the Russian government) posing as members of the Tumblr community
Some of the accounts they listed I know for a fact were not linked to the IRA, or any organization. They were just normal people running Tumblr blogs. I know this because Tumblr told me in the e-mail which accounts specifically they had terminated in reference to me. There were 5 of them, and 2 of them I knew the owners of decently well (used to chat with them on Skype, play vidya with them, have long discussions with about various subject-matter, etc. This was like 3 years ago, mind you).
At the end of the e-mail, Tumblr waxed on about “#democracy“:
Democracy requires transparency and an informed electorate and we take our disclosure responsibility very seriously. We’ll be aggressively watching for disinformation campaigns in the future, take the appropriate action, and make sure you know about it.
These weren’t bots. These weren’t Russians. These weren’t secret agents. Hey, maybe some of the 84 were, but I know not all of them were. They were just various rightists online with blogs (like Carlists, Distributists, really esoteric-but-harmless fashy types that read lots of Evola and stuff). And they really were just blogs. Pictures, long, boring commentary about various things. None of them were necessarily politically active. They weren’t blogs dedicated to motivating any sort of political action. They were, for the most part, heavy on aesthetics and philosophy, mixed with that individual’s ¢2. But, Tumblr, in the name of “democracy”, just used manufactured Russian hysteria as an opportunity to censor them and terminate their accounts. And, then, to add insult to injury, Tumblr went out of their way to claim that these users were Russian agents.
Even if they were Russians, with a pro-Russian agenda…#censorship and narrative control by internet technology corporations is not democratic nor benefiting an “informed electorate”—it’s just controlling what information that electorate can or cannot access based on that corporation’s political agenda. #Google banning videos on #YouTube and purging conservative channels isn’t democratic. #Facebook terminating meme pages and right-of-center groups isn’t democratic. Tumblr, in orchestra with these #freemarket entities, are not protectors of American democracy looking out for the poor, defenseless voter. They’re just big-tech giants working together with mainstream media corporations to create an oligarchy of information control. “Disinformation campaigns”, as Tumblr so eloquently put it, means nothing short of “information we don’t want you to hear”.
Social media platforms are becoming ever more determined to police any speech or expression which does not fit into the molds that are defined by Silicone Valley corporations, which are increasingly becoming staffed with Leftists, Governments with domestic and geopolitical agendas to advance, which therefore need to be sold to the public by every possible channel of communication, and the interests of Wall street. A major method of policing users and their speech that is being employed right now is to allege that any speech that is not in accord with certain ideologies, intentionally and increasingly liberal ones, is affiliated with a foreign government which America happens to perceive as a threat to its global hegemony and which, therefore, must be removed or shut down.
That speech is now commonly defined as pro-life speech, pro Second Amendment speech, advocating traditional Christian family and gender values, criticizing certain public policies, anything conservative, or supportive of the sitting POTUS. These are expressions that foment “divisiveness” and therefore must be affiliated with foreign propaganda, which, in the present geopolitical environment, in this case, means Russian propaganda. And it is being done while citing the protection of freedom of speech and expression.
