Lacking Self-Awareness A Sign of Dementia, They Say

Lords of Conscience, Oozing Arrogance and Suppurating Hate

Picture this scene.  An elderly gentleman with a bouffant hair-style ascends a small platform in Hyde Park.  He begins to declaim the destructive influence of media in the lives of ordinary citizens.  He fears greatly the influence of the "Great Eye" installed in every home in the nation.  In the depths of night, a malevolent glow from the Great Eye begins to gain incandescent strength, he warns.  Hundreds of rapid micro-messages are beamed into the unsuspecting minds of all in the house.  The Great Eye is evil incarnate, he shouts.  Suddenly two burly policeman rush at the man, mount his soapbox, throw him to the ground, cuff him, and frogmarch him to a nearby police car. 

Next day, the regime explains its draconian actions.  "He was guilty of 'hate speech', 'fake news' and 'misinformation'.  Therefore, he had to be silenced.  He was manifestly a great danger to society, etc. etc.

Now, we would expect that, were normality reigning, ninety-five percent of the general population would be aghast.  Ok, so the guy with the bouffant hair-style might be a bit whacky with his conspiracy theories, but it's a free country, and free speech is a fundamental right.  Let someone stand up to counter his claims and demonstrate that the evil Great Eye is a myth. 

Flip over the Atlantic to the United States.
  Electronic news media have assumed the role of the ignorant, burly cops--moving to shut down speech they deem to be 'hate speech', 'fake news', and 'misinformation'.  Then they do the "Aw, shucks" shuffle and say that the last thing they want or intend is to restrict free speech.  They say this with dead pan, straight faces--as if they really believe it.  Either they are profoundly self-unaware, or speciously malicious--or both.  We lean towards the "both". 

Pressie Trump has been complaining recently about Fake News biases.

Trump began complaining about the issue earlier this month as social media companies moved to ban right-wing "Infowars" conspiracy theorist Alex Jones from their platforms. The president also argues regularly — and falsely — that the news media avoid writing positive stories about him and his administration.

Apple, YouTube and Spotify have permanently removed some of Jones' content, Facebook has suspended him for 30 days and removed some of his pages, and Twitter gave Jones a weeklong timeout and was mulling deeper changes to try to limit the spread of fake news, misinformation and hate speech.

Conspiracy theorists have long been a colourful aspect of US public life.  After all, who did really shoot President Kennedy?  Clearly the moon landings were staged by Hollywoodies.  As for 9/11, all cognoscenti know that it was the work of the Deep State and the CIA.  All such views are now verboten according to our Masters and Lords, Apple, YouTube, Spotify, and Google. 

For our part we are pretty clear.  If these organizations are going to restrict speech by conspiracy theorists--or from anyone else--on the grounds that they spread "fake news, misinformation, and hate speech" they should be shut down on the spot.  Their directors must be named and shamed; they must then be put in stocks and have rotten apples, pig swill, and offal thrown at them.  We need to let them know that we Hate! them for their paternalistic arrogance and their arrogant attacks upon the freedom to speak one's mind.

They are a pernicious cancer eating away at the body politic.