Is it really the case that power wants to censor dissenting views?

Reply to wanderoff

Hello wanderoff,

To be honest with you, I think yes. But furthermore politicians and their strategy to reach out to the power, the real problem here is press. Every politician needs more or less a good "image" according to them because most of the people would put their vote just for appearance.
This is somehow censorship. If you do not fit in their views you have the risk to be kicked out of scenario. Then, in this context, your political rivalry can be advantaged of.
Also, programs of control are so useful in dictatorship countries. Check out Belarus or China.

Reply to wanderoff Hello wanderoff, wellcome to the Forum.

Outright censorship as a government action is quite rare especially in democracies. Hence as a tool of power it is quite rare. Perhaps the more interesting issue is self censorship and what norms the society has, not only what the written laws say. Things like the Overton window are interesting.

Quoting wanderoff

its quite clear that, nowadays, the proliferation of political discourses online and offline serve their own, possibly more potent programmes of control.

The extensive use of computer algorithms makes this apparent in the online realm. When the realm is created by computers themselves, it's so easy to then control by computer programs. It took some time for governments to figure out how to take control of the internet, but they surely have learned it. At least some countries. Now they know how to control the social media.

Control is simply baked into the system. It's simply that the service providers use extensively them from start and then that governments have urged them to control the discourse. To directly set limits to freedom of speech is difficult for especially the US government, hence it is far more easy to demand private companies to take care of it (somehow).

Trying to work with the US Congress while smiling happily:

Reply to wanderoff

Censorship is still quite severe, and has only increased since governments sieved absolute control over their citizenry. An example would be the suppression of Dr. Ai Fen and Dr. Li Wenliang in China during the start of the pandemic. In Australia you can be put in jail for organizing a protest under the guise that you’re violating restrictions. There are more examples.

At least 83 governments worldwide have used the Covid-19 pandemic to justify violating the exercise of free speech and peaceful assembly, Human Rights Watch said today. Authorities have attacked, detained, prosecuted, and in some cases killed critics, broken up peaceful protests, closed media outlets, and enacted vague laws criminalizing speech that they claim threatens public health. The victims include journalists, activists, healthcare workers, political opposition groups, and others who have criticized government responses to the coronavirus.

https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/02/11/covid-19-triggers-wave-free-speech-abuse

But it is also quite ubiquitous across more liberal governments. For the last few years many of these states have pressured social media companies to censor “fake news” and “misinformation”, the newest bogeyman. In compliance, they have employed an army of busybodies and algorithms to root out speech that is not first approved by the state.

Reply to ssu Hi ssu,

Thanks for the response.

Outright censorship as a government action is quite rare especially in democracies. Hence as a tool of power it is quite rare.

I agree, one of the fundamental problems liberal democracy sought to solve was tyrannical, repressive power. The "open society" in which "debate and deliberation" are tools for political change, more freedom, etc. Is one that has to operate on a different logic than a traditional authoritarian one.
This is where an interesting contradiction seems to appear, to me, in contemporary political discourse, especially online, on both the left and right. I think we haven't quite shaken this liberal view of power as repressive.

Foucault writes on sexual liberation movements that a peculiar contradiction appeared. On the one hand, there was a proliferation of discourses surrounding 'subversive' sexualities. On the other hand, there was a widespread belief that power sought to repress sexual liberation, and that the mere act of speaking about or acting in accordance with these sexualities constituted a revolutionary act (this was a big part of 60s new left movements, readings of freud in service of sexual AND political liberation, see Marcuse or Reich). Foucault, with the benefit of hindsight, suggests that these movements misinterpreted the nature of power in our liberal capitalist societies. Power benefited from the discursive explosion because not only could it study, understand, categorize and market these subversive beliefs the more they were spoken about, but also because, in so far as people believed their ideas repressed, they always were satisfied with being subversive through speech and rather unorganized, symbolic political action.

What I find interesting about this picture is that it is an analysis of a rather open interaction between power and revolutionary potential that managed to absorb what was seen as subversive into the system, instead of suppressing it - by virtue of speech. Is this not the way power interacts with so called radicalized political communities, especially online? Social media companies make money from speech, not silence. Further, more interaction happens between many diverse and opposing political communities, as well as within them. The repressive hypothesis appears to me to be a part of these beliefs. For the right, there is a certain melancholy about the prospect of their ideas running the world, it is agreed upon by them that government is run by 'leftists' who suppress right wing speech. On the left, the repressive hypothesis manifests in different ways. The left believes the right runs the world, and that leftist ideas are subversive by virtue of their anti capitalism. This belief helps develop communities who engage with each other and with themselves heavily, who engage primarily through speech and ideas online because it is seen as satisfying political desire for a decisively alienated political era. For power, repression and consumption go hand in hand, the more we believe we are repressed, the more we speak and consume these so called subversive ideas.

But also this isn't to say political repression doesn't exist. These two can work together to form even more expansive forms of control.

Reply to NOS4A2 I agree. I wrote a response to ssu that focuses on non repressive power, however I wonder how much real, repressive power works in tandem with non repressive power to form control in both arenas. If we are suppressed, we take to social media to speak. We are, relatively, allowed to speak subversively, and that benefits social media companies becquse engagement and other forms of power because we are relegated to speech and inaction. However, power may be getting greedy here, the proliferation of speech and repression may be too much to control.

Quoting NOS4A2

But it is also quite ubiquitous across more liberal governments. For the last few years many of these states have pressured social media companies to censor “fake news” and “misinformation”, the newest bogeyman. In compliance, they have employed an army of busybodies and algorithms to root out speech that is not first approved by the state.

Which “more liberal governments” are you referring to?

Here’s some maps if you’re unsure: https://features.hrw.org/features/features/covid/index.html?#censorship

Reply to javi2541997 hey, thanks for the response. I wrote a rather long response to ssu that has some of my thoughts on the question of censorship.

I can see what you mean, "representative democracy" is hardly representative and political and capital interests end up limiting political options. And I by no means want to imply that authoritarianism is gone from the world, but that there exist other, more open forms of control, especially in western liberal democracies.

Reply to wanderoff

I think you’re right. Social media is more anti-social media than anything. Bleating on Twitter or some other platform has become the substitute for many social activities, political action included. There are some egregious examples of censorship, like the concerted effort to ban the American president from online discourse, but for the most part social media companies want us on their apps.

Reply to NOS4A2 I wonder how our form of communication effects our political beliefs and horizons.

Reply to NOS4A2 "the medium is the message" or something like that

Reply to praxis

One example would be the United States. The surgeon general called misinformation an “urgent threat” and called on tech companies to take action. European countries have long been waging battle against social media companies over “misinformation”.

Reply to NOS4A2 my point might be that this discourse on misinformation helps to radicalize political communities and to compel them to speak, which benefits power in so far as it had a handle on both repressive and non repressive power.

Quoting NOS4A2

One example would be the United States. The surgeon general called misinformation an “urgent threat” and called on tech companies to take action. European countries have long been waging battle against social media companies over “misinformation”.

In the Human Rights Watch article you linked to the US isn’t listed for any free speech abuses. It seems you are trying to spread misinformation, as usual.

Reply to praxis

It is obvious by what I wrote that my point about more liberal countries was that “For the last few years many of these states have pressured social media companies to censor “fake news” and “misinformation”, the newest bogeyman. In compliance, they have employed an army of busybodies and algorithms to root out speech that is not first approved by the state.” Your own misinformation is betrayed by your comprehension, it seems.

Here’s a map if you’re unsure.

https://www.poynter.org/ifcn/anti-misinformation-actions/

Reply to praxis

There are some egregious examples of censorship, like the concerted effort to ban the American president from online discourse, but for the most part social media companies want us on their apps

I think they're being cool about it. It'd be crazy to suggest there are no issues of censorship on social media and in Politics in general in the US.

Reply to wanderoff
Welcome to TPF!

I would like first to mention that the title-question of the topic, Is it really the case that power wants to censor dissenting views?, actually sounds more like an assumption than a question. It also sounds as if censorship is one of the characteristics of power, i.e. it always wants to do that, which of course is not the case.

So, maybe a question like "In which cases is censorship used by power and what is its purpose?" would be a little more productive.

Quoting wanderoff

I wonder how much power REALLY relies on censorship as a form of social control,

This is a much more productive question. (Of course. it is something totally different from what the topic asks. :smile:)

Now, before tackling the subject of censorship, I believe it will help to describe different kinds censorships. And since I have not studied the subject, I prefer to bring in an excerpt from Wikipedia that I found most useful:

• Moral censorship is the removal of materials that are obscene or otherwise considered morally questionable. Pornography, for example, is often censored under this rationale, especially child pornography, which is illegal and censored in most jurisdictions in the world.
• Military censorship is the process of keeping military intelligence and tactics confidential and away from the enemy. This is used to counter espionage.
• Political censorship occurs when governments hold back information from their citizens. This is often done to exert control over the populace and prevent free expression that might foment rebellion.
• Religious censorship is the means by which any material considered objectionable by a certain religion is removed. This often involves a dominant religion forcing limitations on less prevalent ones. Alternatively, one religion may shun the works of another when they believe the content is not appropriate for their religion.
• Corporate censorship is the process by which editors in corporate media outlets intervene to disrupt the publishing of information that portrays their business or business partners in a negative light, or intervene to prevent alternate offers from reaching public exposure.

We can see that 1) behind every of the above cases, there is power in various forms and 2) the object in all the cases is to diminish if not eliminate the impact of opposing views and actions to what power is trying to apply and even sometimes to impose. And it is evident that the more centralized is power, the more successful is in its attempt to apply its censorship actions and policies, with totalitarian regimes and dictatorships always at the top. In fact, the latter do not even try to dissuade opposition; they just use censorship, mainly in the political, philosophical and artistic sectors. (About philosophy, e.g., censoring Socrates' teachings was one of the first known and most famous cases of censorship in the history.)
And vice versa: the more democratic a regime is, the less censorship can be observed in the society. Very simply because it is incompatible with democracy.

Quoting wanderoff

nowadays, the proliferation of political discourses online and offline serve their own, possibly more potent programmes of control.

Things like these can be only applied to a democratic environment, which means, as I stated above, that we are moving away from censorship. So you cannot compare discussions, programmes, promotions, leverages and that sort of methods with censorship. The second is much more effective and brings immediate results. Censoring for grown-ups are like restrictions parents forced to their children when persuasion fails and even without even trying that.

Reply to NOS4A2

I simply asked which “liberal governments” you were referring to. In response you mentioned the US and something the surgeon general said. I then pointed out that the US is not listed for any free speech abuses by Human Rights Watch.

Quoting NOS4A2

Here’s a map if you’re unsure.

This is what it says about the US:

United States
Action: Proposed federal law, platform testimonies, failed state advisory group, state media literacy law, threat assessment, state media literacy initiatives and state lawsuits

Focus: Political ads, foreign disinformation, general misinformation, media literacy and deepfake videos

Confirmed by intelligence agencies, Russian meddling on social media during the 2016 U.S. presidential election has resulted in several piecemeal actions from the federal government.

First, Congress announced a bill in October 2017 that would require online platforms such as Facebook and Google to keep copies of ads, make them public and keep tabs on who is paying — and how much. Essentially, the legislation attempts to impose existing TV and radio ad regulations on social media companies.

Then, in November 2017, representatives from Facebook, Twitter and Google testified to a Senate judiciary committee on their role in spreading disinformation during the election. During that meeting, there was broad consensus that Russia did manipulate their platforms, but the platforms projected an appearance of control when it comes to monitoring fake accounts and ad buyers.

Meanwhile, the California state government passed a law in September 2018 that bolsters media literacy in public schools. It requires the Department of Education to list instructional materials and resources on how to evaluate trustworthy media. The law was inspired by a Stanford University student who found that most students can’t distinguish between sponsored content and news stories and comes amid several current and former attempts to improve media literacy in at least 24 states.

One of those states is Washington, where lawmakers are debating a media literacy bill that would establish a grant program for organizations working to include media literacy in school curricula. And in 2018, Massachusetts lawmakers passed a bill that mandates civic education with an emphasis on media literacy.

Also in California, Gov. Jerry Brown has vetoed a bill that would have created an advisory group aimed at monitoring the spread of misinformation on social media and coming up with potential solutions. The group, which Brown called “not necessary,” would have asked social media companies, NGOs and First Amendment scholars to present their findings by Dec. 31, 2019.

In mid-September 2018, two Democrats and one Republican representative sent a letter to the director of national intelligence asking the intelligence community to assess the possible national security threats posed by deepfake technology and present a report to Congress by the end of 2018. Lawmakers cited the potential for foreign adversaries to use deepfake videos against U.S. interests as a key reason to investigate them.

In January 2019, a company that created fake social media profiles to make millions of dollars in revenue settled a case with the New York state attorney, CNN reported. The settlement is the first case in which law enforcement has concluded that selling fake social media activity is illegal.

I can easily see how you would be against any legislation that seeks to address the threat of Russian interference in US elections, and that you would be against media literacy.

Reply to Alkis Piskas yes, I think I wrongly posed the question. I have a hard time posing the question. It's something more like: is there an observable belief that political views are censored, and if so, is this belief true? What other purposes might this belief serve? I think that this belief does exist on both the right and left especially in online contexts, despite their ability to speak rather uninhibited online. My reply to ssu explains how I think this belief might benefit power.

Reply to praxis

You thought, wrongly, that the HRW article pertained to the “liberal countries” I wrote about below, and not the authoritarian countries I wrote about above. That’s your misinformation, not mine.

First you accuse me of misinformation; now you accuse me of being against media literacy. Of course, you’re lying. I’m against censorship, as I’ve always said.

Quoting wanderoff

the proliferation of political discourses online and offline serve their own, possibly more potent programmes of control.

Isn't this just another form of censorship, though? Sure, there's the 1984-like censorship, with the State literally hiding and destroying information. But with the Internet, truth gets concealed just by the sheer amount of bullshit that gets proliferated across the web.

Certainly authoritarian countries, like China, censor the Internet in the former way as well. But "democratic" countries, like the United States, rely on propaganda spread by the media in a constant torrent with the aim of keeping everyone agitated and so easy to persuade.

China achieves censorship by limiting the amount of information available. The United States achieves censorship by providing an overwhelming amount of (crap) information.

Reply to darthbarracuda

But "democratic" countries, like the United States, rely on propaganda spread by the media in a constant torrent with the aim of keeping everyone agitated and so easy to persuade.

But also an explosive multiplicity of different 'radicalized' political groups, who have developed beliefs and established communities online, yet achieve very little in reality offline. It relies not only on media companies but on the interaction between people and the medium (internet communication) itself. Power relies a lot less on controlling the "messages" as much as they are focused on controlling the medium (?). At least in the case of internet politics.

Quoting NOS4A2

You thought, wrongly, that the HRW article pertained to the “liberal countries” I wrote about below, and not the authoritarian countries I wrote about above. That’s your misinformation, not mine.

Again, I simply asked what “liberal governments” you were referring to and in response you mentioned something that the Surgeon General of the US said. This is certainly misleading, though I suppose that you may be doing this out of habit and not entirely consciously.

Quoting NOS4A2

you accuse me of being against media literacy

I stated that I can see how you would be against it. You must be against something in what I quoted above as you present it as evidence of free speech abuse. What exactly are you against in it then?

Reply to praxis

I said, “ For the last few years many of these states have pressured social media companies to censor “fake news” and “misinformation”. I gave you an example. How is that misleading?

I am against censorship. I’ve already stated this. I’m not sure what you’re taking issue with here.

Once again, l asked you which “liberal governments” you’re referring to and so far you’ve only specifically mentioned the United States, and the two articles that you’ve provided links to don’t show free speech abuse by this “liberal government”.

Who are you talking about when you talk about the powerful ? Do you mean governments, or institutions and individuals capable of making things go their way ?

Assuming you're using the latter definition, then is it not true that modern liberal governments have constitutions preventing censorship ? Is it not true also that private companies often say that they protect free speech ? If those two propositions are true, then it is true that censorship is either illegal, or dishonest, or perhaps both ? Is it not also true that power comes through institutions in the case of governments, and reputation in all other cases ? Then you have your answer, power is not much reliant on censorship, because power can be stripped away when the powerful use censorship, as the peope will not see them in a good light, censorship can only be performed safely by the powerful when the people already are compliant, in which case it is useless.

Reply to wanderoff Is it really the case that power wants to censor dissenting views?

Possibly not. It serves those in power to have dissenters, and some extreme dissenters at that, because this way, it's easier to dismiss all opposition as irrational, crazy, bad. It serves those in power to engineer incidents that look like they are attacks on them, because this way, by showing off how they handle those indicents, they can better control public perception of themselves.

Reply to Hello Human right, so then is there an exercise of control that generates compliance by virtue of something like the opposite of censorship, an incitement to speak? A "divide and conquer" type strategy that focuses less on propaganda and censorship and more so focused on an endless "incitement to discourse". I am thinking here of social media politics and the 'dissenting' political communities it generates that have virtually no effect on the material conditions of society. All the while maximizing profits for social media conglomerates and crushing real political dissent in favor of a simulated (?) dissent.

Quoting wanderoff

Inspired by Mcluhan, Foucault and others, I wonder how much power REALLY relies on censorship as a form of social control, when its quite clear that, nowadays, the proliferation of political discourses online and offline serve their own, possibly more potent programmes of control.

These are the kinds of questions that require specific instances to be meaningfully explored, so it would help if you could provide an example of something a powerful group would want to censor as part of social control. You'd also have to define you have in mind when you are describing power.

I don't understand your point about political discourses as programmes of control - how do you see this working?

Quoting wanderoff

t relies not only on media companies but on the interaction between people and the medium (internet communication) itself. Power relies a lot less on controlling the "messages" as much as they are focused on controlling the medium (?). At least in the case of internet politics.

What does this mean? Can you provide an example?

Quoting wanderoff

The left believes the right runs the world, and that leftist ideas are subversive by virtue of their anti capitalism. This belief helps develop communities who engage with each other and with themselves heavily, who engage primarily through speech and ideas online because it is seen as satisfying political desire for a decisively alienated political era. For power, repression and consumption go hand in hand, the more we believe we are repressed, the more we speak and consume these so called subversive ideas.

The Right believe the Left run the world and that Right-wing ideas are subversive by virtue of their libertarianism.

Are you suggesting that political discourse and the thirst for subversion is the product of perception, not reality?

Quoting wanderoff

is there an observable belief that political views are censored, and if so, is this belief true?

Again, this sounds as if political views are always censored, since you don't mention any condition, e.g. cases in which this actually happens. Then you ask whether people believe this or not. And the (logical) answer is evidently not. Only someone who is very biased, or has special reasons for that, would believe such a thing. Also, 1) "observable belief" cannot stand since beliefs cannot be observed and 2) beliefs are always true to those who hold them.

Do you maybe mean to say "Is it true there are certain people who believe that political views are always censored?" This is the best shot I can make! :smile:

Reply to wanderoff of course there is such a thing. Propaganda is the first step towards censorship, when people are apathetic or are made compliant with propaganda they will not oppose censorship

Reply to Alkis Piskas hence the second half of the quote, asking for what reason one might believe that their views are repressed or censored. I don't think you have to look very far to see this sort of view in action, it rallied many people to vote for Donald Trump, for example (leftist universities censoring right wing views = larger societal problem of right wing censorship). My point is that this belief seems widespread especially on social media, and it may be the case that social media has the effect of making this sort of political belief (1) profitable and (2) desirable for those who take part. Foucault talks of the speakers benefit in the history of sexuality, he says that it is desirable for one to believe that sexuality is repressed because then speaking on it is subversive and somehow "anticipates the coming freedom". This speakers benefit, when paired with the repressive hypothesis (I.e that power seeks to repress subversive views, lifestyles etc.) creates a constant cycle of speaking about things that are apparently too radical to be spoken of. Hence you can be a communist online, or a fascist, and power doesn't really care. You're just giving them more information on you, and you're trapped in a cycle of believing speech to be subversive, which generates a multiplicity of political communities online that somehow satisfy political desire enough for no one to take it offline. It also profits social media companies and makes political marketing and manipulation somewhat easier.

Reply to Tom Storm I'm suggesting that the thirst for subversion has been entirely absorbed within a system that cares very little about the content of the subversive beliefs , so long as the liberal value of open dialogue and discussion (this is a liberal idea AGAINST repressive, aristocratic power) continues to dominate our political imagination, we will continue to seek political desire in speaking subversively online, which does next to nothing.

Quoting wanderoff

for example (leftist universities censoring right wing views = larger societal problem of right wing censorship)

What you are talking here is about hiding and distoring information. This is not censorship. Power is not involved here. This is happening everyday (moment actually), everywhere!

Definition of "censorship" by Oxford LEXICO: "The suppression or prohibition of any parts of books, films, news, etc. that are considered obscene, politically unacceptable, or a threat to security."

Quoting wanderoff

My point is that this belief seems widespread especially on social media

The social media are not "power". You could at least consider the actual media (broadcasting, publishing, internet), esp. TV and newspapers, which, because of their power, are called "Fourth Estate". Yet, even they don't have enough power to or even not even interested in or need to exercise actual censorship.

But then, as I remember, the issue is the use of the word "belief" ... :smile:

Reply to Alkis Piskas power is not involved ?

Quoting wanderoff

power is not involved ?

Well, if you don't see this, you must most probably use the word "power" with some other meaning. I'm speaking about "Political or social authority or control, especially that exercised by a government." (2nd definition in Oxford LEXICO). My whole description, the examples I gave, the excerpt from Wikipedia ... all referred to that "power"!

I just lost my time then! :sad:

Reply to Alkis Piskas sorry, most of this was in reference to concepts in foucault's the History of sexuality. If you've ever read foucault, his view of power is much more expansive than simple government control. Control, and power in general can be said to be exercised by any institution, the university, prison, capitalism in general, discourse, etc.

Not a waste of time, if anything it helps me to realize I'm being vague.

Quoting wanderoff

Power relies a lot less on controlling the "messages" as much as they are focused on controlling the medium (?). At least in the case of internet politics.

Right, like I have said elsewhere, the point is to get people to feel like they are rebelling, without them actually doing so. Give people outlets to vent their frustration (social media, professional sports, religion, elections, etc), which themselves are usually ineffectual for making any real lasting change.

Reply to darthbarracuda the only qualitative difference I find is the directness with which this operates when it comes to political communities. With sports or religion it feels more easily Co opted by capitalism, because it's almost a metaphorical type of spectacle.. whereas rebellious political activity isn't sublimated through movies or TV but simply through actually 'engaging' in political activity. Moreover, I feel like it requires certain misunderstandings about the nature of power for it to work. Rebellious political speech is only felt to be rebellious if there is a certain belief in power's desire to repress it(?).

Quoting wanderoff

I'm suggesting that the thirst for subversion has been entirely absorbed within a system that cares very little about the content of the subversive beliefs , so long as the liberal value of open dialogue and discussion (this is a liberal idea AGAINST repressive, aristocratic power) continues to dominate our political imagination, we will continue to seek political desire in speaking subversively online, which does next to nothing.

Sure. My experience suggests that most 'activists', right or left are theatrical and certainly don't really want to achieve anything, they just want to whine and be seen as radicals. It was no different before the internet - I remember well. Is this intrinsic and sometimes hypocritical posturing not just human behaviour? It's no different to people who talk about the importance of higher consciousness and subverting materialism when at heart they are acquisitive consumers whose real concern are their cars, homes and swimming pools?