ISSUE #90: Social media is another narrative management tool for the US empire.
Humans are the only creatures on this vast planet who have developed abstract thinking skills; the ability to think about objects, ideas, and principles that don’t exist in the physical world. This unique ability had allowed us to become the dominant species and escape the food chain, but it has now been weaponized by the global powerful elites to advance their agendas.
“Control the narrative, control the world.”
If you can control the thoughts people think about, you can control the decisions they make. If you can control the decisions people make, you can control the way they act. If you can control the way people act, you can control their lifestyles. And if you have successfully controlled people’s lifestyles, you have successfully enslaved them.
Prior to social media, what people think used to be controlled/managed by the TV/radio media and Hollywood. The emergence of social media has proved to be another valuable tool for the powerful elites to manipulate the thoughts of the public, the way they act, and how they vote. Social media giants like Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc. would not be “giants” had they not intertwined with the imperial power.
Here are some examples to prove my claim:
Most of the so-called “fact-checking” organizations used by Facebook to censor information about Ukraine are funded by the US government.
Google - the most used search engine in the world - is filled with ex-CIA officials.
Facebook staffed many former CIA, FBI, and Department of Defense agents.
Twitter has also recruited individuals from intelligence and spy agencies.
TikTok is also employing many National Security agents to police content on its platform.
Silicon Valley is just an online version of the propaganda machine of the US empire. It’s working wonders for the most powerful government on the planet as billions of people show up every day on these online platforms to gather information, unaware of the fact that what they are seeing/watching/listening to is filtered out by the most powerful government on the planet to serve its interests.
We should never underestimate the power of the US empire when it comes to its ability to manufacture consent for whatever it wants. People often overestimate the power of the US military machine and underestimate the power of its propaganda machine. Other nations might come close to the might of the US military, but no other nation’s propaganda machine is as efficient, strong, and powerful as that of the US empire.
As Noam Chomsky said,
“Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state.”
With the rise in literacy and public awareness about political and social justice, and freedom, it’s difficult to suppress people without giving them the illusion that they live in a democracy where they can decide their own fate. The illusion of freedom is just what it is; an illusion. The US empire stands on its ability to maintain these illusions, to manipulate public thought, and to convince the public that any nation that doesn’t follow the US dictates is an evil state that must be destroyed.
Maintaining the public perception of what it sees in the world is what every empire has dreamed of throughout history, and the US empire is living that dream.
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