Although the constitution provides for freedom of speech, vague laws on extremism grant the authorities great discretion to crack down on any speech, organization, or activity that lacks official support. The government controls, directly or through state-owned companies and friendly business magnates, all of the national television networks and many radio and print outlets, as well as most of the media advertising market. A handful of independent outlets still operate, most of them online and some headquartered abroad. Russia: Freedom in the World 2020 Country Report | Freedom House
The above text is a description of the state of media freedom in Russia.
After four years of warning us about Trump being another Putin, have Democrats adopted Putin’s playbook?
Yes, the blatant effort from Democrats to silence their opposition is clear to many people outside the mainstream news bubble. Consider these comments from the President of Mexico who warned that the coordinated internet blackouts are “an attack against freedom” and likened them to the Inquisition.
It is definitely a turn of events for Mexico be so concerned about the future of freedom in the US.
The coordinated take down of Parler has all the signs of Putin-style government arm twisting. At the minimum the government has been complicit in allowing monopolistic practices to shutdown a rising competitor. Consider the response from Democrats about the silencing of their political opponents:
With virtual unanimity, leading U.S. liberals celebrated this use of Silicon Valley monopoly power to shut down Parler, just as they overwhelmingly cheered the prior two extraordinary assertions of tech power to control U.S. political discourse: censorship of The New York Post ’s reporting on the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop, and the banning of the U.S. President from major platforms. Indeed, one would be hard-pressed to find a single national liberal-left politician even expressing concerns about any of this, let alone opposing it.
The alleged threat of political extremism has been used to deny Parler internet access using the monopoly powers of big Tech combined with not-so-subtle threats of retribution from the incoming administration. Yet according to Greenwald, Parler was not the primary platform used by those who breached the Capitol:
. . . of the thirteen people arrested as of Monday for the breach at the Capitol, none appear to be active users of Parler. The Capitol breach was planned far more on Facebook and YouTube. As Recodereported, while some protesters participated in both Parler and Gab, many of the calls to attend the Capitol were from YouTube videos, while many of the key planners “have continued to use mainstream platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.” The article quoted Fadi Quran, campaign director at the human rights group Avaaz, as saying: “In DC, we saw QAnon conspiracists and other militias that would never have grown to this size without being turbo-charged by Facebook and Twitter .”
With such obvious censorship, the old Russian saying appears to coming to the US: “There is no news in Truth, and no truth in News.”
The coordinated monopolistic action of Apple, Google, and Amazon is similar to the way Putin eliminates platforms for the opposition. Russia’s constitution provides freedom of speech, but the government and its allies are able to harass political opponents into silence.
If you doubt the politics of these companies just look at the reported political contributions of their employees:
The service platforms Parler accessed ( private businesses) did. Now go look up the millions of dollars spent by the likes of Amazon, Google etc on Democrat political campaigns. Bought and paid for candidates so in effect, yes, they are the goobermint.
All you have to do is comprehend how the MSM is silencing the POTUS. He’s telling supporters to remain calm and do not under any circumstances riot, that’s not what he stands for but those opposing him, do not want that message out. They want to encourage bad behavior so that they can then yell it from the rooftops.
It’s absolutely amazing how the riots, burning, looting, violence, destruction and murders that have taken place in Seattle, Portland, Minneapolis, Kenosha, DC…and across our nation…were described by the left as nothing but “summers of love” or “mostly peaceful protests” and the lib sheople eat it up and regurgibleet it but the incident last week was…an INSURRECTION! If you want to clearly identify a sheople, just examine Hannity Land and identify those that regurgibleeted this nonsense and they’ve exposed themselves plainly.
You can thank Republicans for that. They’re the ones who championed Citizens United and every other piece of legislation that allows corporations to control DC. Did you all think only conservative ran corporations would take advantage of it?
Politics and control is all about money. There are no “clean” politicians IMHO. When somebody buys you a winning campaign they’re expecting something in return.
And here we are.
