Quote of the day—Kit Knightly

This is about a principle. Donald Trump is the elected head of state, and he is being denied a platform to address the people he represents by the faceless servants of corporate media oligarchs.

This is a terrible, terrifyingly awful precedent to set.

The owners of Comcast or Warner Bros or Disney or Facebook or Twitter are not elected officials. They have no legal authority, and thus no accountability. Yet they are claiming the right to determine what elected officials can and cannot say to the people who elected them.

There is a strain of thought that this kind of censorship is justified. “Spreading disinformation puts lives at risk”, they say. “If the media stopped people lying we wouldn’t be in this mess” or “the news should only broadcast the truth!”.

The argument goes that “allowing Donald Trump to “publicly undermine our democratic institutions will erode the public trust and could lead to violence.”

But I would argue that empowering billionaires to hold a monopoly on “the truth” is far more dangerous to democracy than anything Trump could ever say.

To people inclined to disagree, I leave these five questions. Answer them, if you can:

  1. Who made the decision to censor the elected President of the United States?

  2. Who granted them this power?

  3. Whose interests do they serve?

  4. To whom are they accountable?

  5. In the future, who gets to decide “the truth”?

Kit Knightly
November 8, 2020
Censoring Donald Trump is more “dangerous to democracy” than anything he could ever say
[The main stream media and social media platforms don’t seem to have a problem publishing things about gun ownership that’s fractally wrong. Hence, this isn’t about truth or falsity. This is about deliberate suppression of political opposition.—Joe] 

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4 thoughts on “Quote of the day—Kit Knightly

  1. What bothers me, as I’m sure it does many. Is the childish excuses for doing what they do. Not a sound bit of logic to be found.
    It’s like Lord of the flies style government. They act as if their all Al Gores. With no, “controlling legal authority”, over anything they decide. Consequences be damned.
    Truly a marvel.
    And all we can say is; that’s gon-nah hurt.

    • What bothers me is 1) that they are getting by with it, 2) it’s effective, and 3) there is no defense even for a President.

      • All true. But their also teaching the most heavily armed population the world has ever seen that it’s OK to be lawless.
        Our problem is were not running around in packs.
        But it’s coming.

  2. They are like the nobility in Europe not that long ago. They think that because of their education, wealth, and station in life they are able to detect the true middle ground between the strivers who are beneath them, who are vulgar because they seek wealth, and the poor and unwashed, the clerks and engineers who merely want a comfortable life and a retirement that is not pinched. They are delusional because they think their position allows them to be “neutral”, which is the fabulation that because they already made their money they are thereby out of the game and able to be impartial referees for the rest of us — while guaranteeing they do not lose any of their status and wealth.

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