Forgive me while I run through a thought process.
After what happened in Belfast, the emerging progressive argument seems to be that people are angry because social media allowed too many people to see the video. In other words, people would not be angry if they did not know. And that is exactly the point.
Without full knowledge and information, people are far easier to control. Net Zero becomes “necessary” because no one sees the cost. Climate change becomes unquestionable because the BBC says so.
People might wonder why their own street looks different, but without social media they would never know that everyone else’s street looks different too.
What I take from this is simple, censorship of information is every bit as important as censorship of speech. Because if people cannot compare notes, they cannot form conclusions. And if they cannot form conclusions, they cannot resist.
This is not a moral stance they have taken. It is a political one. Those who believe their worldview is the only acceptable worldview will always end up justifying oppression, because they convince themselves they are doing it for your own good.
The danger of the internet was never simply that it allowed people to speak. It was that it allowed people to know. And once the public knows too much, those who want control will conclude that knowledge itself is dangerous.
That is why the fight for free speech is also a fight for free information.
The days of the internet providing unfettered knowledge may be coming to an end. Certainly, if the UN Global Digital Compact, the Pact for the Future, and the wider “information integrity” agenda are rolled out through governments, regulators and quangos, the internet we knew will not survive.
Hang on to your freedoms for dear life. They may be about to come to an end.
This is why I wrote A War to Win Back Your World. Because the battle now is not only over speech. It is over knowledge, information, and who gets to decide what the public is allowed to understand.
so I think you should pre order it and know what I know (shameless plug, soz) link in thread below