[Peace-discuss] Censorship on the internet

[C G Estabrook]

 <https://www.facebook.com/cgestabrook?fref=gs&hc_ref=ART32T5sNRaVlUgCSBHz-Tik-z4wCOFIEylBIyl0BoZ1Ocl3Zuq8gGz5UMeuLCwE2Qk&dti=305897426305&hc_location=group>
The announcement, which seems to have largely flown under the radar of both the media and Twitter’s user base, came as part of a November update to Twitter’s safety policies, when the site added a crucial clause to its terms of service:
"You also may not affiliate with organizations that — whether by their own statements or activity both on and off the platform — use or promote violence against civilians to further their causes. We will begin enforcing this rule around affiliation with such organizations on December 18, 2017."

Given that US drone assassinations alone, as practiced in this administration and the last one ("The Most Extreme Terrorist Campaign of Modern Times"), are estimated to have killed 5,000 people (it's a secret program, so the USG doesn't release casualty figures) - most of them civilians - it would seem that anyone who "affiliates" with the US government (which rather clearly "uses or promotes violence against civilians to further its causes") will be banned from using Twitter.

Recall that the censorship madness of the American 1950s was practiced by 'good citizens'. The equivocal George Orwell had to write in the preface to his 1945 novel "Animal Farm" (an attack on the Soviet Union), "If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear."

The preface was suppressed and is still not printed in most editions, online or hardcopy. Where will it end? (Why, we might have good people suppressing posts to AWARE's email lists!)

—CGE
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