14 Days of Freedom: Day 1
Good news: It's the holidays and I can blog and tweet to my heart's content! (Well, I could if I didn't have revision...oh well!)
NDAA comes into effect at 12am on New Year's Day...so we have 14 days of freedom. 14 days to say whatever the hell we want before they arrest and kill us as terrorists. In honour of this, for 14 days I'm going to be blogging about freedom-related things. My posts might be long, they might be short, they might be well-thought-out, they might be complete crap...All that matters is that they're to do with freedom in some way.
There have been reports of Twitter censoring NDAA-critical tweets. While I'm cautious to call censorship on anything, I'm definitely worried by this. Most worryingly of all, it shows that we can't trust self-interested corporations with our data and our speech - and yet we do, because their services are popular.
I see one ingenious method to get around this: a social media service by the people for the people. I don't know who would set it up. I don't know if one exists - wlfriends.org looks good, but appears to be closed, which is frustrating. All I know is that we need it, capitalism be damned! Corporations aren't interested in human rights or freedom of speech and communication. All they're interested in is money, an abstract entity that buys material wealth beyond anything anyone could ever dream of or even need or want. It is quite evident that this does not go well with respect for basic liberties (no, libertarians, freedom to exploit others is not a basic freedom - or indeed a freedom at all). And if the corporations, the engines of the modern economy, aren't up to the job of protecting our rights (they don't care), and neither are the governments (they want complete control), We the People will have to stand up and do it ourselves. We are the ones who have to make social media for the people by the people.
It is time to put an end to giving over everything to corporations and governments. It is time to put an end to living in fear that they can delete or censor our speech at will. It is time to put an end to acquiescing and hoping everything will be OK. And it is time to take a stand.
NDAA comes into effect at 12am on New Year's Day...so we have 14 days of freedom. 14 days to say whatever the hell we want before they arrest and kill us as terrorists. In honour of this, for 14 days I'm going to be blogging about freedom-related things. My posts might be long, they might be short, they might be well-thought-out, they might be complete crap...All that matters is that they're to do with freedom in some way.
There have been reports of Twitter censoring NDAA-critical tweets. While I'm cautious to call censorship on anything, I'm definitely worried by this. Most worryingly of all, it shows that we can't trust self-interested corporations with our data and our speech - and yet we do, because their services are popular.
I see one ingenious method to get around this: a social media service by the people for the people. I don't know who would set it up. I don't know if one exists - wlfriends.org looks good, but appears to be closed, which is frustrating. All I know is that we need it, capitalism be damned! Corporations aren't interested in human rights or freedom of speech and communication. All they're interested in is money, an abstract entity that buys material wealth beyond anything anyone could ever dream of or even need or want. It is quite evident that this does not go well with respect for basic liberties (no, libertarians, freedom to exploit others is not a basic freedom - or indeed a freedom at all). And if the corporations, the engines of the modern economy, aren't up to the job of protecting our rights (they don't care), and neither are the governments (they want complete control), We the People will have to stand up and do it ourselves. We are the ones who have to make social media for the people by the people.
It is time to put an end to giving over everything to corporations and governments. It is time to put an end to living in fear that they can delete or censor our speech at will. It is time to put an end to acquiescing and hoping everything will be OK. And it is time to take a stand.
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