How Far Away Are We From CCP Style Digital Totalitarianism?
Hello, everyone, welcome to “Inconvenient Truths”. I am your host Jennifer Zeng.
Tomorrow is the inauguration day of the next president of the US. Dozens of thousands of National Guard troops have already been sent to Washington DC to ensure the “safety” of the ceremony, making the capital city look like a war zone. This is just one of the many unprecedented scenes surrounding this past US election, and the transition of power. Today let’s talk about only one aspect of it: The danger of digital hegemony and totalitarianism, and how can we tackle this?
Twitter’s Massacre
After the incident on Jan. 6 in Washington DC, Twitter permanently suspended President Trump’s account, as well as some other 70K plus accounts. Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat also blocked Trump’s account indefinitely. When Trump’s supporters moved to Parler, the emerging alternative of Twitter, Apple, Google, Amazon worked together to create a complete blackout for it. Its app was taken down from the Apple store and Google Play, and Amazon refused to continue to host it. All these almost killed Parler.
It was quite amazing to watch the United States sliding into this kind of ridiculous situation that once only existed in George Orwell's "1984". And that's the reason why this book again became the No. 1 bestseller on Amazon.
It is also quite amazing that during such an obviously wrong and dangerous situation, very few US politicians stood up to condemn it.
World Leader’s Condemnation
In the meantime, foreign leaders are making louder noises, such as Australia’s Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg.
Politicians from France, Germany, Poland, UK, EU, Mexico, etc, also condemned these companies’ crackdown on free speech, saying that free speech is fundamental to a democratic society, and technology companies cannot censor speech. Poland vowed to stop social media tech giants censoring free speech, and is drawing up plans to stop the likes of Facebook and Twitter from choosing which content to censor. The draft legislation would stop sites like Twitter from blocking accounts unless they are found to have violated Polish law, and a five-member 'freedom of speech council' would consider censorship claims.
The 'freedom of speech council' will be appointed by Poland's parliament, and has a six-year term. Politicians would not be eligible.
If the social media platforms fail to comply with the new rules, they could be fined up to 50 million dollars.
It is very reasonable for world leaders to feel very concerned about the digital hegemony of high tech companies. If President Trump, who had nearly 89 million Twitter followers, and who was the No. 1 influential person on social media, and the president of the most powerful nation in the world, could be silenced overnight, what could happen to other world leaders, politicians, and ordinary citizens?
What Will Science and Technology Bring US?
Actually, many, many years ago, people started to fear what science and technology could bring to human beings. This fear was reflected in American science fiction movies and TV series, such as the TV series "Person of Interest".
Let’s show a picture of this TV series. Have you watched this?
Anyway, in this TV series, although the protagonist was portrayed as a hero who saves his victims, in the end, he tends to have a mental breakdown in the fear of over-involvement in real life, deeply suspecting the uncontrollable consequences of high-tech intervention in human life.
I remember when I was 10 years old, I watched the science fiction film Futureworld.
Let’s show a picture from this movie.
You might have not heard about it if you are too young. It portrays the story of human beings being replaced by cloning machines. I remember after watching the movie, I walked from the cinema to home. I was almost the only person walking on the empty road. The scenes in the movie were so vivid in my mind, that I felt that another me, a cloned me, a machine version of me, would suddenly appear on the road, kill me, and then go home pretending to be me. I was almost killed by this wild yet very true imagination.
Well, that’s a little bit off-topic. But the changes that technology has brought us may not be less terrible than what was portrayed in the movies, although the changes came along less dramatically, so we didn’t realize the danger until it was very, very true, like now.
So, the current situation is, the combination of capital and science and technology has already become a structural power or violent power that has the potential to become the starting point for tyranny. The power to control information is more deadly than others.
4)6 Aspects of the CCP’s Digital Totalitarianism
In CCP’s China, we can say that digital totalitarianism has already been realized. It manifests in the following 6 aspects:
A monopoly of power ensured by guns, or military.
A large media system owned and controlled by the party to amplify the official voices and to provide politically correct public opinion guidance and to brainwash the public.
A system that can precisely block individual speech, mainly on various social media platforms. And the criteria for what to block are provided by the party. In the eyes of the party, "false information" or "harmful information" are all to be blocked, or deleted.
Please note that "harmful information" is different from "false information". Even if what you say is true, and not false, it can still be blocked or deleted if the party thinks it is “harmful”. And the party won’t tell you what is “harmful” and what is not. The Party sets and changes the rules all the time.
This one reminds me of Twitter’s suspension of President Trump’s account. Twitter suspended his account right after he urged his supporters to be peaceful and to go home. At that stage, Twitter thought anything that President Trump said was “harmful”.
4. An omnipresent surveillance system in the society. I think we already knew that facial recognition, 5G, AI, big data, cloud computing, and other cutting-edge information technology, are all the backbone of this system.
5. Blacklists of all those who disagree with the party, the mainstream society and the mainstream media, and to implement precise stability maintenance and targeted crackdown, and to gradually institutionalize this, making it long-term and exist everywhere in the society.
6. A judicial system that serves the party’s interests. In CCP’s China, they call this system the “Zheng Fa” system, which means politics and legal system. This term itself reflects the fact that in China, the legal system follows the political system, or serves the political interest of the party. They are actually one.
The US vs China: How Far Away Are They?
So, what if we compare what is happening in the US now, with what is already set up and established in China?
For the first item, in China, if you control the gun, you control the power. In the US, if you control the election, you control the power.
For the second item, a media system owned and controlled by the party, I think we are not far from that in the US now.
For example, this morning I read a news title from Politico saying that “Joe Biden Can Unify the Country by being boring”. This kind of flattering tone is what I read every day in CCP’s Xinhua news agency. Although the media in the US are not directly owned or controlled by a certain political party, the way they report, the “united” messages they give out, make them look like they're owned by one party, or only serving the interest of one party.
For the third item, the social media platforms, the situation is also very similar to China already. Aren’t those big platforms already doing what the CCP’s platforms have been doing for many years?
For the 4th item, an omnipresent surveillance system, I think we already have that kind of system ready in the US too, only the data is now collected and controlled by the high tech companies. How far away are we from the time when those companies offer that kind of data to the government, or to a certain party they prefer? We really don’t know.
Or maybe there will be one day when the big companies, or the real bosses behind them, can themselves act like a political party and take control of everything.
For the 5th item, blacklists, we are seeing that happening too in the US. Again, this morning I read a report that Bed Bath and Beyond, as well as Kohl’s, have stopped selling My Pillow’s products, obviously, because MY Pillow’s CEO Mike Lindell supports Trump.
This almost reminds me of China’s “Great Cultural Revolution”. When you were labeled as “counter-revolutionaries”, all your rights were deprived of, and you were a total outcast of the society.
In America now, Trump and some of his supporters are getting the treatment that China’s “counter-revolutionaries” once experienced. Political views are used as a criterion to decide your rights, or how you are treated. For example, I heard that the National Guards who were regarded as Trump supporters were sent back, and not allowed to attend the inauguration
For the 6th item, the legal system. If congress can be controlled by a certain party to make laws, if judges dare not make their decisions or judgments because they fear to go against the will of a certain party, or a certain amount of people, or the mainstream views, we are not far from having our own “Zheng Fa” system or “political and legal system” in the US too, when politics and laws become the same thing, or within one single system.
Well, I hope that I am not sounding too pessimistic. I only want to say that if we do nothing to stop the trend, this will be what the US will be like in the very near future.
But, of course, at the same time, where there is a will, there is a way. If enough people are awakened to the danger, if enough people can stand up, spread the truth and find out ways to effectively fight back against the trend, we may still be able to save our country and our freedom.
OK, that’s all I’ll say today. In such a difficult time, I really need more support. Youtube has been deleting my subscribers. So please do subscribe to and share my channel, and are still subscribed. Please also take the time to check out my other videos.
Thank you. See you next time!
1/19/2021 *
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