The new ‘Neighbourhood Watch’

My 2p on Big Brother and expanding free speech censorship

Imagine, if you would, a neighbourhood.

A little community, you might say.

Most people there, are nice folks. They either want to do good stuff or mind their own business. Basically, to be a decent neighbour.

At the end of one street, lives Mr Nasty.

He could be the archetype creepy pervert or maybe you visualise him as the scary idiot with the Nazi flag flying proudly in his yard.

Either way, you just KNOW he’s a bad ’un.

Trouble.

A proper nasty pasty with some utterly abhorrent views. He’s pretty much a loner. Few go near his place, because he exudes evil.

You KNOW to stay away, leave well alone.

Thank goodness………for Mr Nice!

His house is huge.  It’s bang in the middle of the block. It has the white picket fence and roses round the door. Mr Nice is all summer barbecues and church on Sunday. He gets involved with charities, makes time to engage with people about their ‘mental health’ and appears to want to make life a little bit easier for others. He has cash to splash for those in need all over the globe.

Now, suppose one day you’re over at Mr Nice’s gaff, maybe attending a house party…… and you accidentally stumble on the cellar.

Boy, you wish you hadn’t!

Fuck me!

This is Fred West, Norman Bates and Jeffrey Dahmer rolled into one.

And wait a minute………HOW LONG has this been going on?

You mean Mr Nice is actually AN EVEN BIGGER PSYCHO than the other dude?

You mean THIS GUY has bodies buried?

You mean that most of the problems Mr Nasty has, are to some degree, a result of stuff MR NICE did?

Yeah.

Really.

And once you see it, you can’t go back.

You wish you could.

Naturally, you alert others.

“Go check out the basement! Please! It’s all there. I’m not making this shit up!”

“Don’t be stupid!”

They tell you.

“What have you been drinking? Why would we do that? Everyone knows Mr Nasty is the bad dude. Why, that Mr Nice is a force for good! He’s even started a Neighbourhood Watch to keep everyone safe!”

Yes, Dear Reader.

I give you;

Small Number Of Twisted Folk On The Net

V

Big Brother

I could wax lyrical on intellectual arguments for freedom of speech, about the fundamental right to hear and disagree with someone.

But I wanted to give another angle which doesn’t seem to have gotten as much coverage.

And that is…..

That some of us - and I’m one - see Big Brother as a much larger and more dangerous beast than anything else in cyberspace.

WE KNOW there are truly awful people with disgusting views out there.

WE KNOW they pose threat to ourselves and our kids.

WE ALSO KNOW they profit from platforms giving them publicity.

We get that.

It’s just that we don’t feel comfortable with the even darker psychopaths ‘looking out’ for us.

Why would we be okay with that when we’ve seen the evil circus they’ve made of it so far?

We don’t trust

• A government chucking millions at a ‘Covid Inquiry’, green pipe dreams and deliberately provoked wars.

We don’t trust

• Social media companies that actively promote AI and the political agendas of their ego obsessed owners.

We don’t trust

• So-called ‘philanthropists’ who fund brain chips and dodgy vaccines.

Personally, I don’t want ANY of these losers ‘on my street’. But we are where we are, right?

And it’s about how we go forward.

Free speech doesn’t just allow us to completely avoid or attempt to present an intelligent counter argument to the highly visible bogey men in town.

It also lets us challenge and expose the less obvious yet more powerful villains who pose a greater threat by masking as life’s ‘caretakers’.

I want the right to decide what I hear and don’t hear, see and don’t see.

I want to empower my child with the skills of making good decisions about content, after considering various factors.

I want to be able to decide what is ‘mis’ or disinformation, to make informed choices.

I can only effect that by having access to a wide range of views, debates and resources.

Maybe you’ve not yet seen the bodies in the basement for yourself.

And if some of these guys have their way, you never will.

Every door will be locked.

Every stain wiped clean away.

Every piece of evidence, hidden.

And those of us offering an alternative narrative will be bound and gagged and shoved in there too. Many of us already have been.

Censorship starts with the obvious purveyors of hate.

But what happens when the definition of ‘hate’ changes? When the meaning of ‘hate speech’ expands.

Why might that happen?

What could it include?

Who gets to decide?

Which lobbying groups are involved?

Who funds them?

With free speech, we can attempt to find out.

Let’s face it, Neighbourhood Watch was always shit.

It was always a way of getting jumped up little curtain twitchers to spy on others on behalf of the state.

Well, instead of worrying about what every bugger else is doing, why not start with YOURSELF.

What can YOU personally do to make the internet a better place?

Not by means of taking stuff away but ADDING.

What can YOU contribute?

How about we start from that perspective?

Maybe if we did, others would follow suit and model it.

Imagine that colossal domino effect!

The internet IS a very real neighbourhood.

And like it or not, you and I ARE neighbours.

So…..how about we all quit bitching over the garden fence.

I’ll bring over some apple pie.

And let’s go plant some flowers.