The very short answer is:
Because whining is for losers and if you’re unhappy with the state of the world: Do something about it.
The medium-long answer:
Because owning your own media and having direct access to your audience and not be at the peril of being “cancelled” by some malnourished, 200k-USD-student-loan-indebted, embittered, lonely and sexually confused intern at one of the Big Tech firms who ended up in a really bad place due to a lot of bad life choices of his hown in combination with the toxic and hopeless societal environment which is so prevalent these days in almost all of the Western world.
The longer answer:
As most of you who stumble upon this website are certainly well aware off, we are living in an age where “free speech” on the Internet is increasingly threatened by the unholy alliance of gatekeepers of “Big Tech” on one side and government activities and legislation on the other side which seek to regain control over the narratives within their respective societies.
We had a good run of maybe two decades where speech on the Internet was – by and large – free and unregulated and people could share their thoughts, ideas, insights, knowledge mostly without being prone to censorship.
Governments for a long time underestimated the power of the Internet and – slow as those bureaucracies usually are – did not fully understand the loss of control over the narrative that comes along with a large scale adoption of the Internet within their populace, increasingly replacing the old, centralized and controlled one-way “information” distribution schemes which helped those in power to shape and set the dominating narratives within their given set of underlings.
In the late 90’s all what was needed to govern according to back-then German chancellor Schroeder was “Bild, BamS und Glotze” (Germany’s most influential newspapers and Television). Different times, but the importance of the control of the media to strengthen the power of the state has been a constant throughout history.
Controlling thoughts and narratives *always* has been a key tool – maybe *the* key tool – which was utilized by authoritarian regimes in order to move the people within a society into a given direction.
Orwell’s famous 1984 and the huge “Big Brother” TV screen which constantly blares propaganda into each servant’s home was not coming out of nowhere.
Burning books and art which were deemed as “Entartete Kunst” (“degenerate art”) or contained “volkszersetzendes Gedankengut” (roughly: “body of thought which cause disintegration of the people/nation”); the forceful total takeover of the media of the day via “Gleichschaltung” (“forcible-coordination”) and resulting job loss for everyone who did not vow to toe the party line; widespread distribution of propaganda via the modern media of the day via “Volksempfaenger” (first radio model which was affordable for the masses and specifically pushed by the government to allow for widespread “weltanschauliche Beeinflussung” (“ideological influencing/programming”) and “Deutsche Wochenschau” (government-controlled weekly newsreels distributed widespread across cinemas within the Reich) which made use of the new medium of film and become one of the favourite propaganda tools utilized by the “Ministerium fuer Volksaufklaerung und Propaganda” (“Ministry of public enlightenment and propaganda” – note, that at the time the term “propaganda” had not yet earned its negative connotations; after the second World War the industry for the most part rebranded as “public relations”, while doing essentially the same thing).
It did not end there:
Listening to “Feindsender” (“enemy broadcasting station”) which provided alternative views to the narratives driven and propagated by the government and/or even distributing the information gained was punishable with long jail terms or even the death penalty.
All narrative and information distribution had to come and to be controlled by the government: Amateur radio operators were outlawed and all their equipment seized by the government with no recompensation whatsoever.
When the War ended and the next authoritarian regime took over in the Eastern Part of the what was left from the “Reich”, the media censorship remained.
Listening/watching to broadcasting or distributing such information remained a subversive activity which was sanctioned by the state and its agencies and organizations with public pressure and shaming, jail terms and in exceptional cases the death penalty.
Broadcasting your own information via ham radio was only possible when passing a rigid licensing regime by the state.
Understand this: Listening to independent voices from the official narrative was sanctioned/punishable.
Broadcasting your own information critical of the official narrative was outlawed.
Sounds familiar?
Yeah, we are getting there again and laws and procedures are put into place to silence voices which do not follow the official narrative.
We are now at a time, where within the bodies of European Union’s self-appointed governing bodies it is openly discussed on how one can steer Europe’s Internet situation to be a little bit more like China.
Free exchange of ideas has been, is and always will be to the detriment of those in power – which naturally seek control over the exchange of information in order to spread their agenda without any counter-narratives disturbing the top-down flow of the officially approved narrative.
Whether “volkszersetzendes Gedankengut”, “feindlich-negativ” (“hostile-negative”) ideas which needed to be treated with “Zersetzungsmassnahmen” (“decomposition measures”), Orwell’s thoughtcrime (“the word thoughtcrime describes a person’s politically unorthodox thoughts, such as unspoken beliefs and doubts that contradict the tenets of Ingsoc (English Socialism), the dominant ideology of Oceania .”) or nowadays “hate speech” – the words change, the mechanism remains fundamentally the same.
Oh, but “this time is different”, because we who oppose restrictions on free speech are actually the good guys and “only” limit the expression of “hateful thoughts”?
Newsflash: The Nazis back in the day also saw themselves as “the good guys” who are out there to save the world from evil.
Exactly *because* they saw themselves as the virtuous, rightful force upon which the good future of humanity depends, they were able to commit those atrocities they committed at such a massive scale.
Because they thought of themselves as “the good guys”, who have been allotted the duty to clean the earth from evil.
The way history is taught in German schools, is that the Nazis came about almost as like a sudden alien invasion who brought 12 years of darkness and repression upon the German people which then luckily ended with the Americans bombing Germany back to freedom.
There is almost no understanding of *how* it was possible to slide down such a path which ended in genocide and millions of people dead.
Which is why everybody now assumes that they would have been on the right side of history and be in the resistance – of course!
At least that’s what we like to tell ourselves, because it makes us feel rightful and virtuous – almost as if we were side-by-side with Sophie Scholl when they were dropping their anti-war leaflets which ultimately led to their execution for the being guilty of the “criminal acts” of treason, impairment of defence and treasonable aiding and abetting of the enemy.
The truth however is that back then as now there is a significantly large and vocal group of people who believe in almost religious fervour to have found the way to lead humanity into a better future, if there would not be all these people resisting and having different/opposing ideas.
Back then as now exists a likely even larger group of people who goes more or less convinced – along with the official narrative. Maybe they have their doubts, maybe they dislike the trend in silence – but most of them do not have the freedom to speak up in a societal environment, which threatens to cancel their job, business, livelihood if there is suspicion that they don’t follow the official narrative.
“Not rocking the boat” is the convenient and less costly solution in the short-term for the majority of people – with usually much higher costs to come down the road as authoritarianism creeps slowly but steadily into every niche & nook of society, community and even family.
Silencing and dehumanization of people holding different beliefs do not forebode well for what is to come if history serves us a guidance for what is to come soon afterwards.
As somebody who is an ardent student of history, human behaviour & psychology of the masses and came through some luck, hard work and a lot of sacrifice along the way into a position to not be dependent for its livelihood on a third party and can “afford” to speak up, this blog shall be dedicated to the phrase which Ludwig von Mises – a lifelong opponent against authoritarianism of all flavours and “patron saint” of my daugther – chose as guiding principle for his life.
Tu ne cede malis, sed contra audentior ito!
