Black Jet Theory – Volume 4 – Censorship
May 22, 2020 by Marshall Snipes
Recently, I received an email from a friend with whom I regularly exchange ideas. Embedded in the email was a link to a YouTube Video. When I tried to open the video, I received a message that said, “This video has been removed for violating YouTube’s Community Guidelines.” My friend replied, “there was nothing morally objectionable in it. Just a different opinion. What a powerful tool to control the public debate.” Although the video was censored, Tucker Carlson exposed the censorship on national television.[1]
The Black Jet Theory is the notion “that most of what currently happens, when viewed through the filter of common sense, leads to a different conclusion than the widespread view of current thinking by those who control the dissemination and content of information (academia, the media, politicians and other “experts”).[2] If we don’t have freedom of speech and if we don’t have the ability to decide for ourselves whether a particular opinion is valid, then we don’t have the ability to apply common sense and critical thinking to our conclusions. This loss of freedom will ultimately destroy our democracy.
Another friend of mine calls this process “filtered facts”. If you want to lead someone to a particular conclusion, then you filter the facts so that your audience is pre-conditioned to agree with your narrative. History is full of authoritarian rulers who used censorship to control the masses so that they could be led to a pre-determined conclusion. Control of the media and the information it produces is a goal of the totalitarian state.
It was recently announced that it was Facebook’s policy to “limit the spread of misinformation” and to determine the definition of misinformation[3]. Facebook has two billion users receiving information that has been filtered by people who work for Facebook.
YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki, in a recent interview said, “Anything that would go against World Health Organization recommendations would be a violation of our policy”.[4] Big Tech and Big Media are controlling the content the public sees. And with more and more people using social media for their news, it is more and more troubling that censorship is alive and well.
Today, six companies (Google, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, YouTube and Facebook) control an inordinate share of information being disseminated in this country over the internet. Today, seven companies (National Amusements, Disney, Time Warner, Comcast, News Corp, Gannett and Sony) own in excess of 90% of the media outlets (television, film, print, etc.) in the United States. In 1983, there were 50 independent media companies that owned in excess of 90% of the media. There are only a handful of independent news outlets left in the country. Common sense would dictate that there is too much control in the hands of too few.
Censorship is not about politics and it’s not limited to social media. It’s about control. Robert Kennedy, Jr. has been censored by the media and was abruptly removed from cable news for challenging the pharmaceutical companies and main-stream media over vaccine issues. Bill Maher’s recent view of the reaction to the pandemic is missing from YouTube. Many conservative viewpoints and articles have been removed as dangerous when the narrative of those in control is challenged. Who controls that narrative? Is it advertisers? Political donors? Where have all the investigative reporters gone?
Those who disagree with the narrative of those controlling the information are labeled “conspiracy theorists”. They are discredited and censored, and we are to believe they are not credible. You may not agree with Kennedy or Maher, but they have every right to their opinion, and we have every right to hear what they have to say. It’s ok to have legitimate debate on both sides of an issue, without the yelling and screaming, the disruption and the talking over that seems to have permeated cable news. I’ve long believed that if you are intellectually honest, I can respect your opinion. Too often our society has been reduced to talking points without critical thinking.
It is well documented that mainstream media has a left leaning bias. According to The American Journalist in the Digital Age only 7% of reporters identify as Republicans. This has fallen from 25.7% in 1971 according to a study by University professors Lars Willnat and David H. Weaver.[5] According to the Center for Public Integrity, 96% of all political campaign contributions from journalists, reporters, news editors and television anchors surveyed donated to Hillary Clinton in 2016[6]. It’s hard to separate opinion from the news when you are invested. How can bias, a form of censorship, not enter into the subconscious when you have “invested” in a candidate. I suppose if you agree with the bias then censorship might be acceptable. The question is at what ultimate cost? Freedom?
When you experience censorship either directly or indirectly, you have to ask the question, why? Some would say follow the money. Who is benefiting from the ongoing fear that has caused the economy to shut down? Don’t misread that statement. I’m not saying the virus was benign and not worth taking action to prevent injury and death. What I am saying is that the opinions on how to react to the virus were not reached by the freedom to debate the issues in a civilized fashion, but rather were dictated to us by the “experts” who are frequently wrong. The result was, seemingly, an overreaction that has produced devastation to our economy and unintended consequences related to other health issues. If the virus had been dealt with the way every other potential pandemic was, through a medical approach, the result would have been different. Once the pandemic became political, the fear that resulted produced a self-fulfilling prophecy and a further erosion of freedom.
If we as a society do not stand up to the hypocrisy of censorship, then by default we have chosen to believe what we are being told. And if what we are being told is not in our best interest and we haven’t questioned those “experts” who control information, then we deserve the results of authoritarian control of our lives by unelected people who filter facts in their own self-interest.
Don’t take my word for it, think for yourself.
[1] Tucker Carlson – “Censorship by Big Tech” https://www.facebook.com/715987913/posts/10157412194837914/?d=n
[2] “Black Jet – Volume 2020-1”, by Marshall Snipes, May 1, 2020.
[3] Interview with Mark Zuckerberg by CNN https://www.cnn.com/videos/tech/2020/04/17/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-limit-coronavirus-misinformation-cnn-town-hall-vpx.cnn
[4] Interview with Susan Wojcicki with CNN https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-52388586
[5] “There Really was A Liberal Media Bubble” by Nate Silver, FiveThirtEight. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/there-really-was-a-liberal-media-bubble/?ex_cid=538email
[6] “Journalists Donate far More To Clinton” by Curt Mills Center for Public Integrity https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2016-10-18/hillary-clinton-gets-more-donations-from-the-media-than-donald-trump-study-says