The corporation cannot oppress. Censorship and high-tech propaganda have origins in the State
Censorship, Shadow Banning, & High-Tech Propaganda
High-tech propaganda techniques have come a long way. People can be singled out, tracked, profiled, and then have their ads and search results switched out for state or leftist propaganda.*** Leftist propaganda specifically focuses on de facto equality. The relationship between liberty and governing (classically, chaos vs. order) is the same relationship as that of liberty and de facto equality. De facto equality leads to more government, so in many cases, it’s impossible to know if one is observing leftist ideals or state propaganda.
Censorship has come a long way as well. Specific content can be blocked, and specific people can as well via their data history. People and content can even be hidden so that the person being censored, or the owner of the censored content does not know that censorship is occurring. Not long ago, such claims were discarded as “conspiracy,” but I found the software, read through the endless lines of its base form, and exposed its developers, its hosts, and its patrons. ***
Belief systems and people that tend to prioritize liberty tend to be targeted for censorship. If information control originates from the state, which I will shortly prove, then it will suppress that which is a threat to the state – liberty. It will emphasize that which is in service to the state – de facto equality.
It has been a long road to discovery, but I have yet to propose a solution to information and network control. With this essay, I aim to do just that.
That Which Sets Us Free (Economically)
Let’s first review the relevant economics of this subject.
Individuals pursue their ends (interests, goals, etc.). To pursue their ends, they have to use scarce means (time, labor, land, resources, etc.). Since means are scarce, individuals must prioritize their ends. Furthermore, ends and the way in which they are prioritized vary by individual, means (such as skills) vary by individual, and both vary among just a single individual as time progresses. [so a third party (government) cannot use an individual’s means to further that individual’s end better than that individual can for himself because a third party cannot accurately gauge the nuances of an individual’s ends and means]
When individuals engage with one another freely, their exchanges tend to be mutually beneficial. This is because the individual that is not benefited by an exchange has the freedom to decline that exchange. Such is the dynamic between free people in a barter system.
In this way, the individual benefits others by pursuing his own ends, and he does so efficiently and quickly. Free markets reduce error to a minimum because individuals have a highly accurate, quick, and simple test to determine if the consumer’s satisfaction is being met. That test is profit and loss. The individual has an incentive to minimize error quickly and efficiently because his own wealth is being risked. As such, individuals respond to the ever-changing consumer demands quickly. The individual also maximizes profit because all of his ends require at least one scarce mean (such as time, for instance).
Even though an individual cannot accurately gauge the means and shifting ends of other individuals, market dynamics takes care of this in the form of the profit-and-loss test and the very freedom that another individual has to agree or not to an exchange. In other words, person A knows that person B has the means to buy a good if person B agrees to the exchange. If too few persons agree to an exchange, then person A may adjust his price or costs.
The successful entrepreneur benefits other individuals despite not being able to accurately gauge their ends (interests) and means (skills, resources, etc). That is the beauty of free markets – the pursuit of personal interests results in collective prosperity, and it all occurs rather chaotically.
Free market individuals minimize loss, maximize profit, and increase the prosperity of society because it is in the individual’s interests to do so in a free setting. Such results only become more apparent with more competition because good entrepreneurs prosper while bad ones have to adapt and readjust their methods. A “good” entrepreneur provides more prosperity to more people than a “bad” entrepreneur, and he does this with less waste (in both resources and time) than intervention (government) possibly could.
Freedom > Intervention
As we already established, a third party cannot take an individual’s means and use it to benefit that individual’s ends better than the individual can for himself. A third party can take the means of many individuals (taxes or land) and do some public good such as building a library; but had those means not been confiscated to begin with, individuals would have appropriated those means to a net greater prosperity for society than intervention could have.
“But the consumer isn’t competent enough to buy products intelligently.” – interventionist
If this assumption is valid, then the voter isn’t competent enough to vote for one interventionist over another. After all, why does the anti-market politician assume that the consumer should not make his own economic decisions; but the voter should make political decisions (that happen to further the interests of the politician)?
Even when the consumer makes a poor decision that does not achieve his ends (or does, but not in a timely enough manner), this acts as an immediate test. He will alter his behavior and not make that decision again by choosing a competitor or foregoing the service altogether. He may also communicate that dissatisfaction with other consumers, affects their behavior.
If intervention occurs, the consumer may not have such a test or may not have the freedom to alter his circumstances. For example, how would the consumer know if government policing performs its function? Does it have a competitor for comparison? If it does not perform its function adequately, can the consumer choose to not pay for it? Whatever services (de jure monopolies) the state provides, that money that was forcefully taken from individuals would have produced a greater amount of prosperity for society had it remained in the hands of individuals. Individuals have more to risk, more to gain, have a quick test to measure the success of their endeavors, and have to benefit other individuals in order to achieve their ends.
The voter has no such test, particularly since the vote does not concern issues (which can be reasoned through) but instead on candidates that themselves do not understand the issues. The voter does not even make absolute decisions on candidates since many others vote. Hence, the distinction between the voter and the consumer (of which we all are comprised of both) is the distinction of the vote and the action – one is tenuous while the other is absolute. The voter cannot gauge the competence of officials because the official receives his salary regardless of competency. The official does not have to best serve the interests of consumers to become an official – he has to be the most adept at coercion, bureaucracy, or public appeasement.
The consumer has a simple and quick test. The voter does not with his vote. The consumer makes absolute decisions regarding his property. The voter does not produce the same effect with his vote. The consumer can reason the consequences of his actions. The voter cannot (often). So when the interventionist claims that the consumer cannot make his own decisions, the interventionist should also claim that voting is unnecessary in order to be logically consistent.
Conclusion: The voter is necessarily more ignorant than the consumer; yet the interventionist claims that the consumer needs to be controlled and the voter needs to be emphasized.
The interventionist uses many tactics and propaganda to increase intervention. One such propaganda is to convince people that certain individuals are causing oppression, which is ironically something that only the interventionist himself can create.
The corporation does not and cannot oppress. Only the state can oppress. The idea that the corporation can oppress is state propaganda at worst and public ignorance at best. This idea is (like antitrust legislation’s reliance on arbitrary definitions of “monopoly”) a risk to individual liberty.
Censorship and high-tech propaganda software would not persist online if the state was not involved.
State Intervention in Networks
In 2016, the Department of Homeland Security announced that a total of $1 billion would be awarded in grants and awards in the upcoming years. Any institution or group that displayed any counter-terrorism or counter-extremism knowledge or techniques could be awarded funds for their research. Suddenly, a market was created for a service that would not have developed naturally all because the state intervened in the market. Counter-terrorism/extremism in its current form is state propaganda that is meant to justify expansion of state funding and scope despite the narratives being heavily flawed and so arbitrarily defined that virtually any non-radical-leftist can be categorized as extreme or hateful.**
The individual would be held accountable for such blatant state servitude and lack of academic rigor in a free market exchange. I will now show how Facebook and the other dominant tech platforms, Jigsaw and Moonshot and the other CVEs, state-funded psychology and sociology institutions, and various non-profits emerged to take advantage of these funds at the cost of oppressing much of the public online.
The Scavengers
- The McCain Institute, The Institute for Strategic Dialogue, Facebook, Google, and the World Economic Forum: $468k
The McCain Institute argues for the prevention and intervention of “targeted violence and terrorism” with the aid of three giants. The leader of the project worked for the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) at the time, a leftist/statist proselytizer with a history of working with the developers of censorship and high-tech propaganda.*** $76k of the $470k would go directly to ISD. Moonshot was mentioned on page 3.
Persons Involved:
- The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS): 24% state-funded
CSIS is a far-left/statist propagandist that has routinely shown up in my work,*** and has worked closely with the executive branch of the government for over a decade.
- The US Attorney’s Office, FBI, and Anti-Defamation League on Asian “discrimination.”
The Trio discusses Asian discrimination despite the narrative being based on a completely fabricated lie from the state-funded Californian university CVE.**
- The Anti-Defamation League’s history of working with the DHS and “Tech Against Terrorism.”
- The IRS uses leftist propaganda to secure more funds. 8 The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) cites the Anti-Defamation League to characterize militias as extremists.
American University, Jigsaw, and others: $570k
$570k was awarded to American University and their partner, the principal authority on censorship software, Jigsaw. One of Jigsaw’s many roles in this project was to “identify a sample of young (aged 18-35), white individuals that are likely to be targeted with online right-wing violent disinformation in support of violence.”p.8 Jigsaw is a think tank owned by Google with special data privileges to the search engine and YouTube.
Furthermore, the AU and Jigsaw findings were to be disseminated to Facebook, Twitter, and Microsoft. The research manager of Google’s think tank even sent AU off with a letter of recommendation for the funds, as did the CEO of Moonshot, Ross Frenett. Moonshot was cited by AU in an effort to defend the efficacy of CVE techniques. Of course, the Washington Post was cited three times.
Persons Involved:
American University:
- Ashley Alexander
- Kurt Braddock (School of Communication)
- John G. Horgan (Georgia State University)
- Caty Borum Chattoo (School of Communication)
Jigsaw (Google):
- Elizabeth Goldberg
Moonshot CVE:
- Ross Frenett
U.S. Department of State’s Global Engagement Center (GEC)
- Adela Levis
Life After Hate in partnership with Moonshot: $750k
A letter of recommendation from the Graduate School of Professional Psychology at the University of Denver. The unscientific “trauma-informed” phrase was used along with neo-Marxist phrases such as “culturally competent” and “inclusive approach.” Brette Steele, a member of the McCain Institute and Institute for Strategic Dialogue issued a letter of recommendation as well. Of course, the director of Moonshot, Vidyha Ramalingam sent LAH off with a letter. Pete Simi is a common name in this “industry” as well. A professor at the Department of Sociology at Chapman University, he already had a history of receiving federal funding for CVE-related “research” and became a member of Life After Hate board of directors.
Moonshot, the pioneer of the Redirect Method (modern propaganda software technique), shows up repeatedly in these Grants. Moonshot also had unprecedented network powers on dominant social media and search engine platforms during the 2020 presidential election.****
Persons Involved:
Life After Hate
- Sammy Rangel
- Pete Simi (S.T.A.R.T. and Department of Sociology at Chapman University)
Moonshot
- Vidhya Ramalingam
McCain Institute / Institute for Strategic Dialogue
- Brette Steele
Prevention of Targeted Violence
- Geoffrey Pack (Program Coordinator)
Colorado Resilience Collaborative / International Disaster Psychology, University of Denver
- Rachel K. Nielson
26 agencies, non-profits, and universities for counter-extremism: $10 million
The solution is quite simple. Government is the problem, and the more money it forcefully takes from us, the more state propaganda and information oppression will exist. Lower taxes and privatize everything.
The hosts of these campaigns (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Google, Bing, and others) may be labeled as extreme for not aiding in counter-extreme measures, which has already occurred for many platforms such as Parlor and Gab. We can harshly judge the giants that host censorship and propaganda, but the blame is on the state.
The propaganda software is not an exchange. The exchange was the DHS paying people to produce that software. The “ads” or “search results” that show up in that software is meant to look like an advertiser-platform exchange, so as to minimize the amount of scrutiny from targeted users. The idea is to proselytize people without them detecting that the state is involved. The idea is to censor people without them detecting that the state is involved.
Notes
The False Agenda: an analysis of crime and hate crime data, a review of extremism and terrorism studies, and debunking the flawed leftist-propaganda opinion polls
America is Not Racist: a review of interethnic and interracial marriage and cohabitation studies.
The Nature of Crime and Liberty: a rationalism and empiricism approach to what happens to crime as liberty varies
A Hidden War on Free Speech: Google’s Jigsaw: debunking the research of the world’s leading “counter-violent extremist” researcher
The World’s Leading Brainwasher: Moonshot: debunking the research of another leading “counter-violent extremist” researcher
***
Shadowbanned: An investigation into the two software programs responsible for the bulk of censorship across Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Google, Youtube, and Bing
How Far-Leftism is Forced On Us: An investigation into the dominant high-tech propaganda program known as the Redirect Method and other statist/leftist proselytizing techniques.
How Facebook Users are Manipulated into Leftism
Facebook’s Puppet Masters: A review of every major CVE effort on Facebook
The Agents in the False Ads: An emphasis on the proselytizers within the Redirect Method
****
Propaganda and the Nationwide Monitoring of Conservatives During the 2020 Election
Discussion about this post