Summary: the plot thickens, with Twitter being threatened to be removed from Google and Apple’s app stores. Will it happen?
Is actual free speech possible? Sure! For an example of a free speech zone, look no further than the comment section of this Substack. The only messages I removed so far are spams1. While I do reserve the right to delete any messages I want in the future, so far, it has not been necessary.
In the history of my Substack, there were some replies that I did not like, some very wrong and unscientific opinions, and some messages expressing intolerance for certain groups, even relating to one group to which I belong. People dealt with those as adults, mostly ignoring bad stuff, and in my opinion, we have a great community of open-minded and friendly posters. We disagree intensely but politely. We have a vibrant and thriving community of thinkers, for which I am immensely thankful.
The entire vaccine-skeptic community is very open to dissent. It is the norm for us to have differences in opinion. This makes us stronger, as the best ideas win out, and the worst ones are criticized. The best example of antivaxxers productively disagreeing with other antivaxxers is this insightful article by Josh Guetskow.
I disagreed with the emphasis Josh made in one of his paragraphs. In a comment on his blog, I pointed out my opinion (saying that depopulation is not a conspiracy theory but exists objectively and can be seen in official birth and death statistics). Josh and I discussed that very nicely. We respect each other and do not need to pretend we always agree on everything. We are free thinkers and are used to being independent-minded. We become stronger from vigorous discussions.
The Covid vaccine peddlers and “disinformation fighters” must act entirely differently. They must pretend that “all experts agree” with whatever they want to promote because their ideas, unlike ours, cannot withstand open scrutiny.
The illusion of consensus is required to push uninformed people in the desired direction. After all, if “experts disagree,” then the logical conclusion is to “do your own research,” and that’s how people become skeptics! To maintain the illusion of consensus, censorship is required. Even worse, people are hired as “trusted third parties” to keep the pretense of unanimity and engender acceptance of false ideas.
To those censors, free thought and speech represent an “information disorder,” as Tessa Lena explained.
To maintain control of discussions, a well-developed cadre of activist boards and unelected committees blackmail large companies and social networks. For example, they can threaten Twitter by making controlled corporate clients withhold advertising spending. An example of these committees, multiplying and metastasizing like cancer, is “Accountable Tech,” led by veterans of Hillary Clinton’s Presidential campaign.
