Is media manipulation and social media censorship = modern day nazi book burning?

Hey Steemies!

I'm sure it isn't news to any of you that freedom of speech has been under attack for quite some time and seems to be increasingly prevalent as time goes on. I think it's fair to say that who controls the information controls the narrative and shapes the beliefs and opinions of the majority. But who gets to decide what is fake news? Who gets to decide what is real information and what isn't? What an individual is or isn't going thru? Can we really dictate how someone feels or personal experiences because we don't agree with it? What if we have an opinion that gets censored from facebook or you tube, it's still our opinion and we still have the right to it even if it's unreasonable, just like you have the right to call someone a dickhead for having a dumb unfounded opinion or being offensive. Isn't that how we debate things? Interact? isn't that what freedom of speech is about? Isn't that what makes us all individuals? This world would be boring and inefficient if we all thought the exact same thing all the time...like a homogeneous society . Being told what to think or say or write and the control of information fits right under Communism ideologies also prevalent in Nazism and any other totalitarian regimes. In North America, do we support commies and nazies and totalitarians ? Any of the three mentioned certainly doesn't quite fit in a democratic society. Under my employment contract, I can get expelled for supporting/funding /having communist values...So clearly it's a big NO NO in this part of the world. Why would we support such information control from our government , elected officials and media then?

Lets go down on a history lesson on information control. The best predictor of the future is the past. Many in Canada and the USA ask themselves "How is it that the majority of Germany prior and during WWII could ever have supported Hitler and the Third Reich, glorify him while he massacred Jewish communities and took part in massive eugenics programs , how about the rest of his SS, you would think they would see immoral and inhumane things on their own?" The common sense in me makes me wonders, there is no way that the majority of a country's citizens can be that heartless and immoral to support mass killings and genocide, what citizen of the world in their right mind could ever support concentration camps like Auschwitz. Perhaps it wasn't the citizen's fault entirely, perhaps the information they were given was being controlled? Mainstream media propaganda? Were those who tried to speak the truth silenced or exterminated? That brings me to my first example, the Nazi book burning. Ever hear of that? I know some of you certainly have.

Since it was a long time ago, some of you may have never even known this but on May 10th 1933, Nazi student associations began publicly burning books in large bonfires at various universities across Germany and Austria that represented social values or topics that were contradictory to Nazism. This included books with Jewish Authors , books on socialism and liberal values, communism and any political figure or views and religions they did not agree with or deemed anti-national critics of fascism in order to control population sentiments and culture. The movement censored and burned upwards of 25,000 volumes of what was deemed un-german content with crowds gathering up to 40 000 in attendance for one single event conducted similar to a festival with live bands and anti-corruption speeches. These events received positive media attention and radio broadcasts across the country. The books burned included authors like Nobel prize winner Thomas Mann , popular American authors like Ernest Hemingway and social activist Hellen Keller. Even some of the most influential Jewish in history like physicist Albert Einstein became targeted by the Nazis and were forced to flee and later become part of a group of intellectual refugees in the United States.

Hitler Youth became school educators and furthered the Nazi teachings and propaganda agenda, educating and shaping the young minds of children and the next generation on "proper" German values know today as Nazi values. Any educator or political activists teaching anything outside of the narrative were treated like terrorist and a threat to society resulting in intimidation and faced arrest from the Gestapo to later be sent to re-education camps and with the refusal of integration would be sent to concentration/extermination camp for being Jewish sympathizers. This resulted in the spread of fear for repercussions for not holding the radical beliefs of Nazi Germany and the population soon realized that keeping their thoughts and beliefs to themselves was crucial to their survival and "freedom".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_book_burnings

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/book-burning

http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/triumph/tr-bookburn.htm

How does that fit into today's North American society? Alternative media is in constant state of attack and fear repercussions for reporting and educating the public on real issues that plague us as a society. Often such entities or organizations get labeled as "fake news" and discredited and often taken to court for defamation of character if someone with more money than them feels it goes against their products or beliefs and affects their business or image. Some have even mysteriously disappeared or died suddenly of "suicides" or "drug overdose" , lets not leave out "accidents". Many You tube channels discussing or questioning things like conspiracy theories get censored and removed, facebook pages shut down or revenue streams being taken away until it is no longer lucrative for them to continue their investigative work and reporting their findings. Scientist that report on diseases or environmental issues that needs attention or further research gets silenced in favor of the big corporations and their profits and risk getting their credentials removed if they do not retract their scientific findings indicating anything outside the narrative. When corporate interest has more importance than public interest, it's a dangerous road.

Example of this would be microbiologist Shiv Chopra and his controversial paper of Mosanto's rbgh (bovine growth hormone) resulting in him and his team's dismissal after refusing to cooperate and retract their findings on the product's usage safety in Canada when research suggested that the usage of it had detrimental repercussions by causing increased illnesses in cows, in turn requiring greater use of antibiotics in farming and the potential of a rise in super bugs resistant to antibiotics. We currently have a problem controlling antibiotic resistant super-bugs and this was a known scientific fact for almost 30 years. We do not use rbgh in Canadian dairy farming but also not banned from entering the country for sale, it is still commonly used in the USA. This is not a unique situations, countless products have been approved as safe when studies clearly demonstrated otherwise but corporate interest continues to win over public interest. I'm not suggesting we start banning all these unhealthy products or avoid using them, we all pick our poisons but shouldn't the public know about potential repercussions instead of suppressing science? like cigarette packs needing Cancer warnings labels in Canada or needing a "caution hot" label on disposable coffee cups. At the very least not silencing those who try to educate the public based on facts and scientific findings?

In a world where they preach science doesn't lie, if it can't be backed up by science it's "fake news" yet they silence the very science that opposes their narrative. Does that make the establishment and the MSM media "fake news" since they contradict real scientific findings and silence anyone questioning it? How about pesticides and herbicides that are deemed safe? the safety of genetically modified crops and insects? Yet several studies suggest a reduction in gut health and the diversity of healthy bacteria and enzymes for digestion, a significant reduction in sperm count, increases in cancer diagnosis, a rise in food allergies and auto-immune disorders, a reduction in plant biodiversity and bees, among many other things as our food chain becomes more and more industrialized and the uses of these pesticides and herbicides increase in the western world. There are once again plenty of retracted papers on studies that link these findings. What else are we being lied about or not being properly informed to protect corporate interest?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiv_Chopra

https://nowtoronto.com/news/public-health-whistle-blower-shiv-chopra-isnt-done-talking-about-rbgh/

In today's day and age, who reads books anymore? Most of us do our reading activities online, catching up on local and world news, our interactions, just about everything is online now. Lately, facebook has been going on a mass censoring spree in Canada after the breakout of Trudeau's SNC Lavalin scandal, removing a series of political posts he doesn't agree with, mainly conservative oriented, alternative or independent media, non-government approved media and funny memes that accuse him of treason or anything he doesn't like for that matter. Facebook was told do do a better job at filtering content or face stricter regulations in Canada with the next election being later this year.

I don't post things that would be considered offensive or untrue yet many of my posts have been censored, I have gone to "facebook jail" for putting some of my steemit posts about my travels to the Rockies,I have gone to "facebook" jail trying to raise awareness on various atrocities done to our indigenous population by the government, like Saskatchewan's former eugenics programs and forced sterilizations and abortions to indigenous women(That is well known by the way), friends have gone to "facebook jail" for posting too many things about our prime minister's cozy relationship with SNC even when they are true, the list goes on. Since when does a prime minister gets to dictate what is to be seen or not seen on facebook? How is that not an attack on free speech? Under Bill C-59, anybody who makes any claims against the government or corporation and cannot show personal proof that they approve of, can be considered a domestic terrorist and can be charged in a court of law. If that's not censorship and spreading fear of repercussions on a mass scale, I don't know what is. If it happens in Canada, it happens in the US and other countries.

https://thehill.com/opinion/cybersecurity/397047-big-techs-censorship-of-conservative-users-is-alive-and-well

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/dec/04/google-facebook-anti-conservative-bias-claims

My last topic is mainstream media manipulation. We can trust government approved press right? Wrong. having lived in multiple provinces in Canada, the media reports are all extremely different across Canada even if it's the same story and the same news outlet on the same day sometimes even being contradictory. Alberta will say one thing, the opposite in BC, and a different story in Ontario? They push the agenda of those who pay them and often create societal divides between the provinces causing clashes at protest...Imagine that. For the most part, most of the news lack substance and fail to report on actual important stories, leaving them out of the media entirely only to replace them with cute kitten videos and puppies, if I wanted to see that, I would just go to facebook or youtube. If you live in the US, your news are just as rigged with most major news channel being alt-left and promoting their agenda. (Being owned by globalist, who saw that one coming...haha) What I'm saying, even if MSM is saying it, question it and research it as much as you would alternative media before buying into it, you never know what they are not saying or what propaganda they are trying to sell you. (Hmmm 9/11? Las Vegas shootings? to name a few. What's the real story? probably not what the media told you. How many more stories are we being lied to about?) With all the actual atrocities and obscene material we can find on the internet that should legitimately be banned, it's not a war on fake news and hate speech, it's a war on real information being silenced and we can't allow that anymore as a population, even if they are things we don't want to hear or uncomfortable subjects to face and opinions we don't like.

I'm not suggesting we live under an totalitarian government or Nazis but the information we receive is highly manipulated while the real information or the full story gets suppressed. Those who spread real facts and information live in fear of repercussions including scientist that dare go against the grain, whistleblowers like Jody Wilson Reybould (the former Attorney General who lost her job standing up against government corruption and judicial interference) get silenced and forgotten and the corruption continues as the leaders hide behind their political party and bribe their way out of trouble. This is a slippery slope to be on when free speech and freedom of the press is under constant attack and information gets manipulated... It certainly reminds me of an ugly time in history, and we really shouldn't go down that road again.

We are witnessing a live digital information deleting/suppression party....aka modern day book burning party when all the information someone with money doesn't like gets censored. We no longer live in a society with freedom of speech, only the illusion that we do because the media said so. It's time we demand transparency before we reach a point of no return, be critical thinkers, learn to do your own legitimate research before being so quick to take the information given. With the internet, it takes time but the answer will always be somewhere behind the scenes in dry and boring official documents. Time to take off the blindfold and see what's really happening around us before we find ourselves completely silenced and afraid to voice our thoughts and striped of our remaining rights. Before we become a modern day pre-ww2 Germany cautionary tale for the people of the future that will in turn ask about us "how could they support this insanity?"

Cheers! X🐞X