Media Shame File
Outlet: The Globe and Mail (Canada)
Headline: Excessive free speech is a breeding ground for more Trumps
Summary: This article reads like satire at first, with passages like these:
When other communications revolutions like the printing press, radio, and television came along, they were still largely controlled by the elites. But when the internet came along, regulatory bodies like Canada’s CRTC backed off. It was open season for anything that anyone wanted to put out. No license needed. No identity verification.What a far cry from the days when the masses had no outlets save things like “man-on-the-street” interviews or letters to the editor or protest placards. We moved from one extreme to the other.The masses were finally weaponised – not with arms, but with a communications instrument that empowered them against establishment forces like they had never been empowered before
But the author is dead serious. He also doesn’t seem to realise that his column reveals everything that is wrong with the aforementioned elites, who believe the world was much better when the “multitudes” didn’t have megaphones, and could just be given a limited amount of establishment-approved information and told what to think.
But now, when people can think and say whatever they like, we get figures like Donald Trump, who is bad presumably because he’s some kind of authoritarian (who never did any dictatorial while in power and wants people to have free speech), not because he’s a 90s Democrat.
The logical conclusion here, which the author doesn’t seem to realise, is that right-wing ideas are better and truer, and can only be stopped by stifling free expression.
Thanks for the confirmation, “conservative” Canadian corporate press.
Key quote: “Free speech became as much a slayer of democracy as an enabler”
Subtext: “Let us jail you for life for saying things we don’t like”
