TikTok, TikTok, winding down our freedom’s clock…

This could easily be the Grinch’s refrain if he was as concerned about protecting people’s rights as he was about destroying them. If you’ve seen the movie as many times as I have, you will recognize the tune.

I have just become aware that TikTok, presumably at the behest of the Grinch, er, I mean, US government, has just permanently banned one of the world’s most famous journalists, Glenn Greenwald, for posting videos which “violated the community standards”. That is to say, Greenwald posted videos critical of the government’s incessant attack on this little matter of free speech and subsequently had his account shut down. Forever. Without recourse. Permanently. Such is the very real threat which every journalist has to consider when he posts anything which might be frowned upon by those who do not want to see it come to light and exposed.

Read this article for more information.

Ever since the State of Montana became the first in the country to outlaw TikTok within its borders (supposedly to protect the weak, stupid, and gutless citizens who were addicted to it and could not refrain from using it, you understand), I have been pounding the issue. I came out forcefully against the State’s action from the beginning and have not altered my stance. This is not a question of “protection” of the common person from the depredations of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). It is, and has always been, about control of the flow of information which is available to the average prole.

https://poorrogersalmanac.com/2023/04/19/montana-the-new-state-of-censorship/

https://poorrogersalmanac.com/2023/04/23/tiktok-round-2/

https://poorrogersalmanac.com/2023/04/26/tiktok-round-3/

https://poorrogersalmanac.com/2023/05/22/the-end-of-the-world-and-tiktok/

https://poorrogersalmanac.com/2023/12/01/the-saga-of-tiktok-montana-continues/

Commenting on Greenwald’s ban, Adam Dick writes this.

“Five years back, technology companies were hitting their stride with cracking down on alternative voices. That crackdown has continued over the ensuing years. Further, evidence has increasingly been revealed that fills out the story of how United States government agents have behind the scenes been pushing the crackdown.”

“Given this context, one is wise to be skeptical of politicians and bureaucrats of the US government, along with their media allies, clamoring that TikTok needs to be banned because it is spreading propaganda for the government of China. It sure sounds like a fox guarding the henhouse sort of situation. Is the US taking a break from its censorship fixation to defend Americans from censorship here? Isn’t a more likely explanation for this talk of banning TikTok that making this threat is part of an effort to further bring this social media company into the US propagandizing operation — that the US government is seeking to advance its own interests, not to protect users of the company’s social media platform?”

https://ronpaulinstitute.org/glenn-greenwald-explains-how-threats-to-ban-tiktok-are-part-of-the-effort-to-expand-us-censorship-through-tech-companies/

Did you get that? TikTok needs to be banned because it is spreading propaganda for the government of China. In Montana, the overriding reason was not so much that it was spreading propaganda as it was that the EVIL CCP was scooping up information about TikTok users and compiling a database to be used against them, eventually, at some undetermined time in the future. At least, that was the official story line, the narrative. Presumably, a male teenager from Havre, Wisdom, or Big Timber, who only has sex, drugs, and Grand Theft Auto on his mind is in grave danger because he also views content on TikTok whenever he is bored and has nothing else to do, which is most of the time.

Naaaahhhhh! I agree with Greenwald and Dick. TikTok is being folded into the mix of government coercion and censorship, eventually to be as compromised as Google, YouTube, Facebook, et al., all of which are more than willing to toe the government line, so long as they are allowed to stay in business. Of course, in that respect, TikTok is no different and it will inevitably cave and grovel under the statist boot because of it. Greenwald comments,

“…they care about profit. These are capitalists. They don’t care about giving the US government control over content moderation. They are happy to do it if that’s the condition they have to meet in order to keep access to the very lucrative US market.”

All of which goes to prove that there really is nothing new under the sun. The love of money IS the root of all evil.