Big Tech and government censorship

After searching without luck for longer than I ought to have done, probably due to the masculine instinct to avoid asking for help, I relented and walked over to the librarian’s desk.

“Can I help you?” she asked with a smile, tucking a strand of dyed green hair behind an ear studded with tiny pieces of metal lined up in a row like miniature artillery pieces.

“I hope so,” I replied. “I’m looking for some books on creative writing. I must’ve been in the wrong place.”

The woman frowned. “Creative writing, you say?”

“If you could point me in the right direction.”

Her response surprised me. “Why would you want a book on that?”

My frown was involuntary. “Excuse me?”

The smile was gone now and her lips pressed together in a thin line. She diverted her attention for a second and I followed her gaze toward a patron at a reading desk. I’d passed the featureless man in the grey suit earlier. I turned back to the counter and our eyes met once more.

“I must ask you to keep your voice down,” the librarian muttered, gently tugging a multicoloured lanyard as if it were a secular rosary.

“My apologies,” I said without conviction. “I was unaware I was speaking loudly.”

“Never mind,” she said before falling silent again.

I waited for an awkward moment, expecting an answer to my inquiry, but none came. “Creative writing?” I prompted.

The librarian shook her head and sighed. “We don’t have anything on that subject.”

I imagine my brow furrowed at that moment. “Really? Are you sure?”

“Perfectly,” she replied, tilting her head slightly to increase the condescension. “It would be inappropriate,” she offered by way of paltry explanation.

“What’s inappropriate about creative writing?” I questioned.

She huffed. “Do I really have to explain?”

“Humour me.”

“The clue is in the title,” she retorted.

“Creative writing?”

“Exactly.”

Concluding there was nothing exact or even coherent about her reply, I decided to press her. “What, precisely, is wrong with the expression of ideas?”

She held my gaze. “Oh, nothing, as long as they’re acceptable.”

“Acceptable to whom?” I asked. “It sounds like you’re advocating censorship. This is meant to be a library,” I added with incredulity.

She leaned forward. “You’re missing the point. Words can be dangerous.”

“To dictators and tyrants, perhaps,” I answered. “Not to normal men and women with inquiring minds.”

The librarian glowered at me like I’d drowned her support kitten in a water barrel. “I find that terminology offensive.”

“What on Earth are you talking about?”

“You said ‘men and women’,” she replied. “In fact you said ‘normal men and women’. Who are you to judge how people identify?”

“I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said.

She nodded slowly. “And that’s the problem.” She pointed above her head at the wall.

I glanced up and saw a device of some sort with a blinking LED on its face. “What’s that?” I asked.

“Facial recognition camera,” the librarian answered. “You’re on the system now.”

“I already hold a library card.”

She shook her head. “Not that system. The system.”

“I didn’t consent to having my photograph taken,” I said, irritated. “I came here looking for books.”

“Actually you did,” the woman replied with a sneer. “It’s in the terms and conditions. You accepted them when you walked in.”

For the first time during the exchange I was speechless. The peculiar librarian, however, had evidently found the energy to expound her topsy-turvy principles and carried on with vigour.

“The trouble with people like you,” she continued, “is you think you can get away with offending people. That’s why we need to educate you; you refuse to educate yourselves. Words are violence.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said. “Violence is violence. Words are just words. Besides, no one has the right to be offended.”

She folded her arms. “I knew you’d say that. Spoken like a true oppressor. You free-speech acolytes always expect us to accept your facts over our lived experiences.” She paused her rant for a moment. “Why can’t you fascists just be kind?”

“You are utterly mad,” I replied.

“My neuro-diversity is none of your business,” she snapped.

“You work in a library!” I exclaimed. “A depository of ideas!”

The librarian leaned back in her chair and made a sweeping gesture. “Approved works only,” she said smugly. “We’ve decolonised.”

“What does that even mean?” I countered.

Her demeanour relaxed a little, surprising me. “It’s not that we want to silence everyone,” she conceded. “We just need everybody to be on the same page.”

“So you’re controlling what information people have access to?” I challenged. “No dissenting voices or different opinions? No nuanced arguments or philosophical concepts? That terrifies me.”

The librarian gave me a curious look. “Why would it scare you? We’re doing it for everyone’s benefit. To protect people. I don’t understand the lack of gratitude.”

“I don’t want to be told what to think,” I replied. “I want to have the freedom to think for myself.”

She gave me an almost sympathetic look and softened her tone when she next spoke. “Look, why don’t you join our conformist reading club?” She pointed at the seated man. “He’s a loyal member.”

“No thanks.”

“It would help you see how we’re trying to make the world a safer and more inclusive place.”

I shook my head. “Not bloody likely,” I replied. “I’ll try the bookshop in town. Maybe they’re not so closed-minded.”

The librarian shrugged. “Good luck with that.” She tapped her keyboard.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

She pointed at the camera above her head. I didn’t look up this time. “You’re too dangerous,” she said, and the sternness had returned to her voice. “You’re a vile bigot. I’ve locked your bank account.”

“What?” I spluttered. “Are you joking?”

The librarian glared daggers at me. “I think you’d better leave before I call the police and report you for a hate crime.”

I stared at her for a moment, unable to find suitable words for my incredulity and anger. I turned around and headed for the door. I stopped next to the grey-suited man. He looked at me emotionlessly.

“What are they making you read?” I inquired.

He held the book up to show me.

The pages were blank.

As a novelist who thoroughly enjoys the fiction of secret cabals and conspiracies, I am alarmed at how the citizens of supposedly civilised Western democracies are becoming increasingly controlled by Big Tech platforms, the mainstream media and their allies in Western governments. Fiction has become reality.

The idea for this article and the library story came to me in 2022 while Elon Musk was acquiring Twitter – now X – and indicating that freedom of speech would return to the digital public square. And while there were many examples of censorship to write about back then, the draft essay didn’t feel ready to publish.

Although I admit I had some doubts about Musk’s plans for the platform – there was a moment when it looked like the acquisition would not go ahead – I hoped for a much needed transformation of the online space and thought that Musk was the only person crazy and bold enough to make it happen.

I intended to revisit and rewrite my essay before posting it on my blog, but various distractions prevented me from doing so. As it turned out, it was worth delaying publication. Keir Starmer has become the UK’s prime minister – by voter apathy, not support – and he immediately revealed his authoritarian instincts.

I do not intend to scrutinise the UK’s dreadful legislation concerning the use of digital messaging tools; it is enough to say that Starmer has coerced the courts into handing out harsh custodial punishments for idiotic online posts which far exceed the penalties incurred by knife-wielding robbers, rapists and child abusers.

Be in no doubt that the aim is to create an atmosphere of fear in which ordinary people are scared to post their concerns about mass immigration and the plethora of societal problems it causes, and it makes the predictable and false accusation that dissenters are far-Right xenophobes who should be silenced.

Never in my lifetime have I witnessed such an open attack on the British citizenry by a prime minister. I am reluctant to refer to Starmer’s rule as a dictatorship – the State is not (yet) meting out violence for non-compliance – but the control of information and the demonization of recusants are authoritarian tools.

It is now that anyone who cares for freedom of speech is thankful that Musk owns the most important social media platform. Take a moment to imagine what the current situation would be like if Twitter had not been reinvented as X. It is the only major online space where censorship is prohibited and debate can flourish.

It is worth looking back at the pre-Musk era of internet censorship. We all knew it was going on. Accounts on various platforms, including Twitter, were suspended or shut down for posting about the climate scam, gender dogma, vaccine scepticism or even satire that did not align with ‘progressive’ ideologies.

But it wasn’t easy to prove. Platform owners either denied closing down dissident users or hid behind a morass of terms and conditions that could be interpreted creatively and misused without explanation. The censorship was obvious to all but paradoxically shielded from scrutiny. But that wasn’t the worst of it.

Not only were the platforms effectively running their own empires without any willingness to entertain contrarian ideas, but they were in league with several state institutions under the Biden administration to manipulate the narrative. That was a misuse of power that even Starmer could not have dreamed about.

An investigation by The Intercept revealed evidence of collusion between the USA’s Department of Homeland Security and the major Big Tech companies to control access to information online and throttle contrary opinions, and it was done on the flimsy pretext of protecting the population from terrorism.

It was Musk’s invitation to Bari Weiss of The Free Press to examine the internal communications of his newly acquired company that brought to light the truth about how Twitter blacklisted users. They denied ‘shadow banning’ unfavoured accounts but had a process called ‘visibility filtering’ to do just that.

The ‘Twitter files’ were a turning point but censorship fights on through legislation, such as the UK’s Online Safety Act 2023 and the EU’s Digital Services Act. Ostensibly written to ensure a ‘safe and accountable online environment’, the laws endeavour to control information under the guise of preventing harm.

The legislation is not entirely without merit – one understands the need to protect children from online abuse – but the true motivation behind laws such as these is to smother information that does not align with the official narrative, and the terms ‘misinformation’ and ‘disinformation’ are thrown about with glee.

This does three things. Firstly, it infantilises adults and declares they are incapable of evaluating what they read. Secondly, it attributes greater power to online voices to incite bad behaviour than they really have. Thirdly, it deflects from the real causes of discontentment through its own disinformation mechanism.

And while there is genuine disinformation out there – that sounds like an oxymoron but it is not – the disinformation which the likes of Starmer and Thierry Breton of the EU are talking about is simply opinions they do not like, not propaganda from a malevolent foreign power or terrorism apologists.

Breton’s attempt to invoke the DSA to block the broadcast of a conversation between Musk and Donald Trump on X backfired spectacularly – even the EU had to claim he had acted alone – but it revealed precisely the authoritarian instincts of those on the Left who want to silence opposition voices.

And has there ever been a more blatant and disingenuous lie than the claim that this is done to protect people and to preserve democracy? Other egregious examples abound, from Donald Tusk’s purge of journalists in Poland to Nancy Faeser’s – now overruled – ban of Compact magazine in Germany.

It is not just right-wing political views that are getting shut down. The major platforms – with the obvious exception of X – still have a terrible phobia about uncontroversial topics such as immutable human biology. The eminent Richard Dawkins posted this message on X about his cancellation from Facebook:

Dawkins knows a thing or two about XY and XX chromosomes, so surely his expert commentary about men taking over women’s sports would be welcome? Not according to the Facebook ideologues who not only closed his account but also banned posts with the #XX tag after the Olympics boxing controversies.

(Dawkins must be a conundrum for the woke Left. Zealously anti-Brexit and a firm critic of Christian beliefs, he seems like the ideal role model for progressives. But his demolition of religion also targets Islam, which holds a special place in their hearts, and he has the audacity to say that men cannot become women.)

I happen to agree with Dawkins that religious beliefs are harmful and preposterous, but while his focus has been on the old faiths, it is the new secular doctrines founded in claptrap academic theories that we should be more wary of today, because they define the core ‘values’ of Western governments and Big Tech.

These wacky ideas do not stand up to scrutiny, which is why critics are insulted and ridiculed at first, and then, when they refuse to shut up, officialdom turns to censorship and becomes increasingly despotic. One effect of this is the subversion of democratic principles. Consider this post from the UK’s Home Office:

At first glance this seems to be a welcome example of robust law and order in response to the recent riots in English towns (which every decent citizen condemns unequivocally). But the declaration that every person is a criminal prior to a fair trial disregards the presumption of legality (innocent until proven guilty).

This is one example that is indicative of the gulf between the ruling class and the citizenry. It sounds rather conspiratorial to talk about ‘Westminster elites’, but there really is a stratum of people in the halls of power who consider themselves morally perfect and unconstrained by democratic principles and traditions.

Perhaps it has always been this way, at least to some degree, but there is something wicked about the moral certitude underpinning the alliance of anti-democratic Western governments, tech companies and compliant activist-journalists. It has never been easier for the holders of power to control information.

Understanding the truth of this power dynamic makes it even more absurd to accuse the powerless of inciting outbursts of anger on the streets through a handful of online posts. Those worried and defiant enough to ask questions about immigration policy are not far-Right. It is a false yet easy slur to make.

It has been suggested that acts of rebellion in works of fiction are universally admired, but the enthusiasm to follow suit in real life is distinctly lacking because we are risk averse by nature. As we have seen many times, the consequences of defying the official narrative can be severe. But even now, all is not lost.

We can take some reassurance from the fact that the oppressive characteristics of authoritarian leaders do not stay hidden for long. (In Starmer’s case it has taken mere weeks.) Even in the face of censorship there are ways to raise our voices. Commentators can use their own websites and blogs and, of course, X.

Elon Musk’s role is indispensable in these troubled times. He is not trying to be a modern-day Socrates but he is providing the public space for those who speak up whilst also defending the gate against those who desire to stifle debate and impose speech codes upon their populations. We depend upon his defiance.

What can the ordinary person do? I see the answer in the actions of the elites. When their narratives are threatened, they rally together and hold the line. We need to adopt the same strategy of coordination and bring wise and rational voices together. Musk’s X is our town square. We just need to express our words.