Censorship as the Order of the Day

By Onuwa Lucky Joseph

Donald Trump’s leadership of the free world was abysmal and atrocious. And so say some of us. Nevertheless, not everyone would rank it as such. For not an insignificant number, he was the best thing that happened to the world.

So much so that Trump’s percentage win in the US presidential elections was all of 46.9 per cent (74,223,744). Joe Biden eventually carried the day by winning 51.4 per cent (81,283,485) of the popular vote. As it turned out, more people wanted change than didn’t.

The farcical storming of the Capitol which was supposed to mirror the French storming of the Bastille, precursory to the French Revolution, was a last ditch attempt by disgruntled right wingers to impose their will on the majority who wanted an America that lived up to its ideals of liberte, egalite et fraternite, again the rousing cry of the French Revolution which overthrew the monarchy and planted the seed in the western world, of people power.

Trump, in truth, wanted a comeback of sorts of the ‘royalty’ or as with many things Trump, a pseudo monarchy with himself crowned as the unquestioned commander in chief. He didn’t deny calling African countries sh–hole, had a disparaging word for everyone including, it must be said, not a few Whites; even though for his own entirely selfish reasons, he did lean overwhelmingly to the rather unsophisticated poor Whites who thought their patrimony disappearing before their very eyes as other races swamp them in sheer numbers.

But it still needs be said that in the Trump voter mix, are Blacks, Latinos, Asians, Muslims and others who saw in Trump, salvation for their different positions, including religious, financial, moral, and ethical.

On the balance, though, Trump was the bad guy. As Jeffrey Goldberg, Editor in Chief of The Atlantic Journal, said recently, “America under Trump became less free, less equal, more divided, more alone, deeper in debt, swampier, dirtier, meaner, sicker, and deader.”

Here was a man who believed Covid-19 a non-issue until it became the issue. He fought his NATO allies, fought the WHO, fought his country’s security agencies, discrediting their intel at every point. He was a sore thumb to millions of Americans who had been shell shocked at his eventual emergence as president after they’d thought him a joke for most of the campaign.

In his relationship with the media, the fourth Estate of the Realm no less, he was condescending and downright disrespectful. Their job description, he believed, was to be tail wagging lapdogs of the American President.

But the media balked at this expectation that bore no resemblance with the proud American media tradition which had seen it bring down an American presidency through its resolute revelations and reporting of the Watergate scandal.

Trump, they believed a small fry, and they played no small role in bringing him down at the end of the day. They don’t seem done with him yet.

Trump’s tenure is over, however, and millions worldwide are happy. But the world is not now inhabited by only the happy ones. There are millions terribly unhappy as well by Trump’s departure.

Their token stand on the Capitol was to ensure the stage still had some space for him. And so the question now is how does the world treat these renegades. We trust the American justice system will take care of that matter. But the media, the social media especially, must tread a lot more cautiously.

The business of muzzling or ratcheting up voices now seem fallen into the hands of social media owners who are wielding the big stick, and goaded by a triumphal liberal back force.

This has seen Twitter can Trump permanently while Facebook has banned him indefinitely. Some of Trump’s right wing acolytes are also snagged in the ban. It’s a good thing, no doubt about it, to ban speeches and materials that incite to violence.

The world needs more of that. However, the job of social media owners is not to ban individuals based merely on political affiliations and on positions now not considered politically correct.

Social media was negotiated as the vastest and freest platform for the expression of ideas; and so, deliberate constriction of this space can only drive some people underground to foment plans that catch us napping at point of their execution.

While most of Trump’s outbursts were clearly vile and with a mind to rile, how about leaving readers and viewers to decide? After all, despite using Twitter as his bully pulpit for all of four years, he still lost the elections. For as long as ideas are countered by superior ideas, and people on both sides of the aisle engage actively for the attention of the audience, individuals (citizens) have the power to decide what to believe. Isn’t that the libertarian theory upon which the modern free press was predicated?

Take Trump out of the equation, and issues of ideology begin to loom quite large. Free expression of viewpoints and ideas seem frowned at by the new global media czars, leading to an obliteration of cherished age long traditions in different crannies of the world. It is for this reason that conservative societies e.g. China, Iran, and countries in the Middle East forcefully police the internet as they believe the ideas promoted there are largely at variance with their own ways of life.

Those societies would rather not risk the potential for upheaval as the newer generation exposed to the ideology espoused online seeks change from what obtains while seeking to hitch their social wagons to ultra liberal ideas that are contrary to local mores. It does seem a small point, but it’s one that would widen on a global scale as the Biden presidency, in concert with social media enforcers, decide the agenda of the day.

Social media cannot forever deny individuals with differing viewpoints the room to vent. The social responsibility theory of the media holds that people ought to self-censor, and they should. However, when one ideological side holds all the aces with regards to ownership and regulation, no amount of self-censorship would seem enough. As long as idea is not considered an ideological fit, it’s quickly shown the knife. A herd mentality is being cultivated by default or as some would say by design.

Let this be strictly about a redline. At what point do you go past the line? What do you do that gets you canned? Let’s debate it. An instigation to violence and bloodshed? Clear redline! But even that, in context. If social media were available in the apartheid era, Nelson Mandela and his people would be banned, not because they were wrong to call for an uprising, but because the powers that be would have cast their struggle in the mould of a blood thirsty affair.

We must therefore watch the unraveling new world information order which comes with more questions than answers.

CSR HIGHLIGHT OF THE WEEK

Enforcement has begun with regards to The Coronavirus Health Protection Regulations (2021) recently signed by President Muhammadu Buhari. It is good that government seems woken up to the dangers of Covid 19 on a largely ignorant population. Bad is that that millions of Nigerians are unaware and not much us being done by way of awareness creation to help them be on the right side of the law. The PTF needs to find creative ways to get the message across in order to prevent it becoming another exercise in extortion.