Control of the news media is an instrumental, key feature to any totalitarian government. In contrast, the primary reason this experiment known as the United States has lasted so long under relatively free conditions is due to the preservation of free speech (and press) via the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
In case you haven’t read it in a while, here’s the text:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Nowhere in there do I see an exception for “conspiracy theories,” but apparently Constitutional scholar Barack Obama has an alternative interpretation.
As reported by AFP:
Pittsburgh (AFP) – President Barack Obama on Thursday decried America’s “wild, wild west” media environment for allowing conspiracy theorists a broad platform and destroying a common basis for debate.
Recalling past days when three television channels delivered fact-based news that most people trusted, Obama said democracy require citizens to be able to sift through lies and distortions.
“We are going to have to rebuild within this wild-wild-west-of-information flow some sort of curating function that people agree to,” Obama said at an innovation conference in Pittsburgh.
“There has to be, I think, some sort of way in which we can sort through information that passes some basic truthiness tests and those that we have to discard, because they just don’t have any basis in anything that’s actually happening in the world,” Obama added.
“That is hard to do, but I think it’s going to be necessary, it’s going to be possible,” he added.
“The answer is obviously not censorship, but it’s creating places where people can say ‘this is reliable’ and I’m still able to argue safely about facts and what we should do about it.”
The above may sound good on a superficial level to people with zero critical thinking skills, but even the most elementary analysis exposes it as the obvious and dangerous attack on free speech that it is. Let’s zero in on a few things he said in closer detail.
He describes the media environment as the “wild, wild west.” Kind of sounds like an environment in which people are free to say, publish or record whatever they want, and let the chips fall where they may. Seems consistent with the first amendment to me.
He notes that there needs to be “some sort of way in which we can sort through information that passes some basic truthiness tests and those that we have to discard.” This sounds good on the surface because, after all, who doesn’t want truth? The problem lies in the fact that governments can and do lie all the time about stuff of monumental significance. Let’s take the Iraq war for example. As I discussed in August’s post, Questioning Hillary’s Health is Not Conspiracy Theory:
Of course, the New York Times rendering judgment on those pushing conspiracy theories would be downright hilarious if it weren’t so sad. For example, the paper itself exhibited no such restraint when it came to peddling U.S. government conspiracies about Iraq in the run up to one of the most inhumane, unnecessary and destructive foreign policy blunders in American history. In fact, the paper was ultimately so embarrassed by its own behavior, it issued a statement in 2004 titled, FROM THE EDITORS; The Times and Iraq.
Meanwhile, there were millions of people in the “wild west” of opinion making yelling and screaming that the government was misleading the public about Iraq in order to go to war. So who got it right, the New York Times, or the wild, wild west?
If Obama had his way, those people who asserted that the public was being mislead into the Iraq war would have been dismissed as “conspiracy theorists” not worth paying attention to since they refused to agree with government “facts.” Obama’s position is such an obvious authoritarian slippery slope, one has to ask why he would dare go so far.
My view is that there is a full on panic occurring right now at the very top of America’s shadow government due to the fact that the public is no longer falling for corporate media propaganda. Once again, let’s turn to something I wrote in the post, Questioning Hillary’s Health is Not Conspiracy Theory:
As I look at the landscape in 2016 to-date, I observe emergent signs that alternative media is finally beginning to take over from the legacy mainstream media when it comes to impact and influence. The mainstream media (unlike with John McCain in 2008), had decided that Hillary Clinton’s health was not an issue and chose not to pursue it. Many in the alternative media world took a different position, and due to mainstream media’s failure to inform the American public for decades, the alternative media drove that issue to the top of the news cycle. That’s power.
This is an incredibly big deal, and the mainstream media intuitively knows what it means. It means a total loss of legitimacy, prestige and power. All of which is well deserved of course.
So here’s the bottom line. 2016 represents the true beginning of what I would call the Media Wars. Alternative media is now capable of driving the news cycle. Mainstream media now has no choice but to fight back, and fight back it will. It will fight back dirty. This is going to get very ugly, but by the time the dust has settled, I think much of the mainstream media will be left as a shell of its former self.
By ugly, I didn’t expect the President of these United States to so publicly and radically advocate in favor of free speech restrictions, but here we are.
Let’s conclude by tackling another portion of his talk, where he states, “the answer is obviously not censorship, but it’s creating places where people can say ‘this is reliable’ and I’m still able to argue safely about facts and what we should do about it.”
Who exactly is supposed to be granted the power to create such spaces and verify things as factual? We know that government lies all the time, yet when they lie, they present such falsehoods as fact. It is the duty of the people to decide what to believe and what not to believe. This is not the job of government, or anyone else for that matter.
Yes, it’s true that there’s an unbelievable amount of garbage out there on the internet, but yet we manage. What seems to be happening here with Obama is a not so subtle attempt to blame the rise of Trumpism on alternative media as opposed to the actual culprit, his oligarch coddling policies. It’s a sign of pathetic desperation from a man who has completely and utterly failed the American public while protecting the rich and powerful. It’s an ugly manifestation of an executive who cannot come to terms with the justified anger of a public who feels betrayed by him. Sure a compliant, preening and entirely propagandist media would make Obama feel a whole lot better about his miserable legacy, but we shouldn’t sacrifice the first amendment to achieve this.
For more on this topic, see:
Hillary Clinton Enters the Media Wars
In Liberty,
Michael Krieger
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Such governmental certification of truthfulness would quickly become a signal to the public that the site is under the control of the the government and end up having the opposite result from what he intended. Sites will go out of their way to make sure they do not have the government’s certification of truthfulness.
What effect does O’s recent signing over the control of the Internet to other countries do? WHY did he do that?
Alexander, Rachel. “Dangerous Erosion of Freedom as Obama Cedes Control of the Internet.”
Townhall.com. 7 April 2014.
Kehl, Danielle. ” Dot What? The Surprisingly Interesting History of the Internet Domain System.”
Slate. 7 May 2015.
Lee, Dave. “U.S. Ready to ‘Hand Over’ the Internet’s Naming System.”
BBC News. 18 August 2016.
Pollak, Joel B. “Two Months Left Until Obama Gives Dictators Control of the Internet.”
Breitbart. 17 August 2016.
Strickling, Lawrence E. “Update on the IANA Transition.”
National Telecommunications & Information Administration. 16 August 2016.
Don’t take any of the President’s rhetoric in good faith. It wasn’t spoken in good faith. The globalists are building a totalitarian hell on Earth with no rights or liberties recognised for the common man. This is just the next step in their creeping agenda.
Did he actually use the word “truthiness” ? That means stuff that sounds true but is not. Hilarious.
My “conspiracy theory” is totally the result of Obama/government censorship.
It is really all about secrecy v transparency. We know that secrecy works well in keeping most citizens in the dark and we also know that money and hacking provide most information the Russians and Chinese might want.
Obama and our government work full-time to censor the information we citizens get about what our government is up to. Does anybody think the Russians and Chinese are as in the dark as we citizens are?
Congress could revamp our policies but they choose not to.
535 Politicians & Several Presidents Sold America Out When They All Went Along With The Neocon Warmongers & Their PNAC New Pearl Harbor Coup on 911 – Now Everything is Covered Up Under National Security & Secrecy With The Patriot Acts, NDAA, Etc.
U.S. media is subject and mandated to section 501 of the National Defense Authorization Act. It legalizes a longstanding federal law that made it illegal for the US Department of State to share domestically the internally-authored news stories sent to American-operated outlets broadcasting around the globe.
In other words they could use propaganda everywhere but here on US soil against Americans. It’s section 501 of the NDAA or the Smith Mundt Modernization Act (HR 5736). It overturns the Smith-Mundt Act. It abolishes the stipulation that the U.S. Had to leave it’s propaganda just overseas. It now allows the government to use propaganda on it’s own citizens. People here criticize Russia, China and North Korea because their media is state run. Well now, since May 10, 2012 the USA’s is too!
Why do you need a broadcasting board of governors, i.e. a government agency, if your media is not state run?
RFE/RL, the US state broadcaster, which is controlled by the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG). https://www.sott.net/article/331138-Menace-of-Unreality-strikes-as-US-state-media-reporter-feigns-shock-at-RT-scoop-of-Podesta-emails-before-mainstream-media-reports
http://rt.com/usa/smith-mundt-domestic-propaganda-121/
http://www.businessinsider.com/ndaa-legalizes-propaganda-2012-5#ixzz2Y7KbYyr1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYUUxIoFsDQ
The self-declared champions of so-called “free markets” cannot tolerate a “free market of information.”
Donald Trump Uncensored: This Is America’s “Moment Of Reckoning”
Sometimes, you just have to listen…
“There is nothing that the political establishment will not do; no lie they will not tell, to hold their prestige and power at your expense… and that’s what’s been happening. The Washington establishment – and the financial and media corporations that fund it – exists for one thing only… to protect and enrich itself.”
…
“For those who control the levers of power in Washington and for the global special interests – they partner with these people that don’t have your good in mind – our campaign represents a true existential threat… like they haven’t seen before. This is not simply another four-year election; this is a crossroads in the history of our civilization that will determine whether or not we, the people, reclaim control over our government.”
Turn off MSNBC, CNBC, CNN, and NBC and listen – away from the spectacle – to some uncomfortable deep state realities…
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-10-14/donald-trump-uncensored-americas-moment-reckoning?
Guess O does not approve of this message?
Obama and the left have already suppressed free speech. Just see how many real conservative news outlets you can find on tv and soon they will ban the ones on the internet. You can see this is coming and so will be the 2nd American revolution.
The media is owned and operated by corporations who favor the conservative platform. Neither party represents the people anymor. You might want to make a note that I would bet that was not in the msm that Bush Jr. eliminated habeas corpus.
An easy way to fight back here is dump cable and go streaming. I absolutely refuse to pay franchise fees to detestable media channels like CNN. “Cable News Network” built its media empire around cable. Will be happy to see it go bankrupt.
Did anyone else notice Obama’s use of the made up by Stephen Colbert’s writer(s) the non-word “truthiness?” It was, IIRC, made up on one of the first episodes of “The Colbert Report,” way back when. It is the perfect description for the propaganda that is “Obamaspeak.”
Totally agree so I have a question for the author. You said you could not vote for Trump but Hillary is an extension of the Obama agenda and will most certainly try to censor the internet. Still never Trump?
Trump has publicly supported internet censorship. I wrote about it.
Donald Trump vs. Hillary Clinton on Freedom of Speech – A Side By Side Comparison: http://libertyblitzkrieg.com/2015/12/08/donald-trump-vs-hillary-clinton-on-freedom-of-speech-a-side-by-side-comparison/
I cannot support either.
Michael
By not voting for Trump its a vote for Hillary. So standing by your principals you elect Hillary and I believe she is definitely the worst of both candidates. You may not like it but you should vote for Trump since he is the only one that may represent a change from the status quo
I don’t see it that way. Neither one of the two major candidates are aligned with me on the issues of most importance to me. Everyone has their own issues, so everyone is going to see every election differently.
I hope to one day have a candidate I can proudly vote for who also has a good chance to win, but that hasn’t happened and it certainly isn’t happening in this election.
I respect your choice, so I ask you to respect mine. We will all need to stick together and not bicker if we are going to turn this country around irrespective of who is elected in November.
Thank you for sending this to me. The question is if this will have a reverse effect t and enhance freedom of the press… Will this enhance what is considered “newsworthy intellectual property?” The judges will be carefully reviewing this, but its so true, in America we MUST be free say what we want. ALWAYS.
Obama=antichrist
So Obama’s expanding the SJW narrative of “safe spaces” from College Campuses to all public places – who knew that Cultural Marxism was being coordinated from the White House? And he just turned over the internet to the UN, thus making the web one giant “safe space”. Free speech was overrated anyway.
NPR was reliable & accurate at least until the GW years, nowadays not so. Yeah ‘conservative pundits’ called them left leaning but unfortunately the truth seems to always be ‘left-biased’ to right-wing authoritarians…
I am voting for the U.S. Constitution. Everything else devolves from there. In other words, “Hillary = Bad. Donald = Less Bad.
WW3
I agree totally that any media content control by the government is a bad thing but at the same time your example regarding the reason the Iraq war was started through NYT lies shows how you too have been sucked in. WMD’s did exist in Iraq, Saddam used them on the Kurds (also well documented in the NYT), then an endless stream of trucks took them to Syria and they have resurfaced as Assad used them against his own people.
You mean the chemical weapons attack against the Kurds the CIA knew all about. You mean this attack?
4. The CIA Helped Saddam Hussein Massacre Iranians and Kurds with Chemical Weapons in 1988
CIA records now prove that Washington knew Saddam Hussein was using chemical weapons (including sarin, nerve gas, and mustard gas) in the Iran-Iraq War, yet continued to pour intelligence into the hands of the Iraqi military, informing Hussein of Iranian troop movements while knowing that he would be using the information to launch chemical attacks.
10 Chemical Weapons Attacks the U.S. Government Doesn’t Want You to Know About: https://libertyblitzkrieg.com/2013/09/05/10-chemical-weapons-attacks-the-u-s-government-doesnt-want-you-to-know-about/
Right – this is reliable from the same people that stopped GMO labeling in the U.S.
Obama has to go down as the worst president in American history. Never has there been anyone in the White House so hostile to the Bill of Rights as this little Marxist follower of Bill Ayers.
The liberal idiots and that includes the guilty white liberal morons who voted for this little lying thug must feel really proud by now.
Libya, Ukraine, Syria, the immigration crisis in Europe, a loomin war with Russia and possibly China.
Jesus K. Rist! What a mess that mongrel in the white House has created and we are all going to pay for it. He is going to get us all killed.