Why is Big Tech Censoring Criticism of China?
China has infiltrated social media and is trying to use its power and influence to censor any criticism, and purge critics. There is much more to the censorship scandal.
By controlling the language, Big Brother controls the way that the people think. With a limited or censored vocabulary, the people are limited in how much they can think, as well as, what they think about.
“Totalitarian regimes of the 20th century showed that control of the language is one element in maintaining control over the people. Deprived of an adequate complement of words, the people are unable to express thoughts contrary to the standards imposed on them and become helpless and easily managed. Even if they are unhappy or dissatisfied with conditions, they are unable to put that discontent into words, much less actions. Control is more easily maintained at the linguistic level than through police repression and brute force.” —Boris Kagarlitsky
In British writer George Orwell’s anti-Utopian book “1984,” this new language was called Newspeak. The Soviet Union and other totalitarian regimes are gone, but not the totalitarian methods of exercising control over the people. The fewer options the ruling regime has of achieving sweeping political control, the more it will resort to indirect methods of control, such as the manipulation of language, to preserve the existing order.
Many working people can't take the risk of being censored or silenced. Those that do can lose their livelihoods or reputations. Hence the mere threat of censorship works for the censors. Big tech and their social media subsidiaries have a lot of business in China and therefore have a big conflict of interest. Their interests are protected by, and they benefit from, well, working with communist China. It's an interest that works against our freedoms to think and speak as we see fit.
Government and Big Tech are following the Chinese communist Party lead on monitoring and controlling the citizenship. It’s a slippery slope with major unintended consequences. We are not sheep in need of a big government shepherd. Censorship is the first step along the road to socialism and an authoritarian state. Serfdom follows.
The best defense against the insidious weapon of censorship is to speak the plain truth as much as possible. Paul Crespo speaks the plain truth about China and his voice is being silenced.
Paul Crespo was a regular on LinkedIn. His articles were factual and well-written. I can no longer find his profile. He has disappeared from this public square...as so many people do in communist China. I too have had censorship essays disappear on this site, without notice or reason why. They have a long history of censoring voices on the right and the site has millions of fake profiles hiding their real intentions.
His essay on censorship is worth the read.
China Threat Technology | May 12, 2021 | Paul Crespo
National Security Alert – Chinese Influence Over Big Tech – LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network with 756 million members in more than 200 countries and territories worldwide, and the third largest social media giant. It is smaller in size than Facebook (at 2.75 billion members) or Instagram (at 1 billion), but far larger than the much younger (age 18-29) crowd at Twitter (340 million).
When it comes to influence though, LinkedIn, due to its professional and disproportionately leadership-oriented demographics, arguably has more influence than most.
Yet, it is generally ignored when analysts comment on Big Tech. Especially when it comes to censorship or foreign subversion.
It should not be. Especially since it may be penetrated by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
My recent experiences with LinkedIn, where I have been a paying ‘Premium’ member for many years, is horrific. As a national security professional, media entrepreneur, and journalist, my extensive international LinkedIn network consists mostly of public policy and security analysts, senior military members, and the media. My highly professional and well-sourced posts are likewise geared to my network.
And I had never before had any issues with LinkedIn.
However, beginning this year, LinkedIn suddenly became perhaps worse than all the other Big Tech firms with regards to censoring conservative views and purging members. But its bizarre obsession with aggressively purging and blocking any post or comment critical of communist China is particularly reprehensible and concerning.
I have had a post linked to reputable historical source discussing Mao’s nearly genocidal mass murders blocked. Other posts linked to a U.S. Senate report on Hunter Biden’s links to China were repeatedly blocked. Most concerning though, is LinkedIn’s apparent mission to repress ANY information that points to China’s links to the COVID-19 pandemic.
I have had multiple posts linked to credible and mainstream news reporting on China’s biowarfare programs or potential links to COVID-19 blocked. Such as this, or this. Most recently, their censorship extended to even totally disappearing the ‘offending posts’ citing Australian news reports of a leaked document/book where Chinese military scientists discuss weaponizing the SARs virus back in 2015. My article is linked here.
Normally when censoring, LinkedIn blocks viewing of the post to anyone but the individual who posted it, and then sends an email explaining their ‘justification.’ These range from the most generic ‘violations of policy,’ to labeling what they don’t like as ‘misinformation,’ to more recently calling them ‘scams or spam.’ Generally, they give you the opportunity to review your post and ‘Ask for a Second Look.’
I have challenged every single act of LinkedIn censorship, and won on several occasions, having my posts restored—albeit after having lost viewing momentum. But, now in its most recent attempts to censor my posts, by eliminating the post altogether, LinkedIn makes it much harder to contest their capricious or deliberate actions and removes the evidence.
Am I alone in this censorship, and is it simply random algorithm-based folly? Absolutely not. A noted China expert, Pete Humphrey, recently had his comments blocked and then had his profile totally restricted at the apparent behest of CCP operatives in Beijing.
His crime? Factually, but critically commenting on the all-powerful China Global Television Network’s (CGTN) propaganda posts. Apparently, according to the LinkedIn commissars, a lone, elderly scholar can ‘bully and harass’ a colossal, state-run media powerhouse. After being released from two weeks in the LinkedIn ‘clink’ or jail, Humphrey posted about his harassment in a LinkedIn article titled: “Is LinkedIn China’s Censor?”
In his piece he notes that due to his publicized incident, he received highly disturbing information from sources within LinkedIn that said:
…LinkedIn’s so-called “localised China operation” was involved in executing the will of the CCP and CGTN in censoring me. Some years ago LinkedIn had caved in to CCP pressure to set up a “local operation” in China which would censor and filter content on the platform within China. Setting up this “local operation”, they said, was a quid pro quo for LI continuing to operate in China, unlike other western social media platforms who are blocked because they refused to collaborate with CCP censors.
But it’s not so “local”, these sources said. China has planted people working for the “China operation” on the staff in LinkedIn’s offices in America as well. There is sometimes a battle for control…
So, apparently China has infiltrated LinkedIn, and is trying to use its power and influence to censor any criticism, and purge critics. There is much more to the LinkedIn-China censorship scandal.
Paul Crespo is the Managing Editor of American Defense News. A defense and national security expert, he served as a Marine Corps officer and as a military attaché with the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) at US embassies worldwide. Paul holds degrees from Georgetown, London, and Cambridge Universities. He is also CEO of SPECTRE Global Risk, a security advisory firm, and President of the Center for American Defense Studies, a national security think tank. - paulcrespo.substack.com - PAULCRESPO.COM