Mind
Management via technology mediated communication:
Control
of Knowledge Production, Distribution and Use
Irfan
erdogan, 2019
Summary:
The ownership of material means of production is fortified and sustained through the control of knowledge production, distribution and use.
The ownership of material means of production is fortified and sustained through the control of knowledge production, distribution and use.
Science
is used to produce and advance knowledge on technical goods in order
to serve the dictatorship of a private class that plunders the world.
Social
science is used to reproduce widespread functional ignorance and mind and
behavior management to serve the same class.
The ownership
of means of production and production processes are justified, normalized,
universalized, eternalized and advanced
through the control of social sciences (and communication channels ).
Material
plunder and the prevailing conditions of life on earth are defended and
sustained by the immaterial plunder of minds and conscience.
Technology
Mediated Communication in Terms of Content and Public Policy is the integrated
part of organizing, running, managing and advancing the prevailing conditions
of life under the dictatorship of capitalist class.
I.
COMMUNICATION
All definitions of communication that takes a
moment of human interaction and defines communication accordingly are invalid,
because what they define is not communication but an instance of communicative
action.
II.
MEDIATION (in communication)
Mediation in communication includes every factors
that shape needs, thinking and decision processes, communicative and
non-communicative activities and communication.
Mediation assumes (1) a tilted state and (2) an
unmediated, true and normal state of relationship. This assumption is very
functional to the side of the power structures, because the normal state almost
always is a state that serves the dominant side. Even if we complain that
police applied disproportionate use of force, our mediating statement functions as legitimization of the use of
force, as well as a stupefying statement that replaces meaningful ones.
Intervention of police means applying a mediating
factor to a social demonstration in order to disseminate them and make sure
that their message is not heart. Police mediates against mediation that
disturbs the status que.
A media professional who thinks that “we know what
they want, we won’t fell in their trap” makes a news saying that “demonstrators
caused disorder in the daily life.” He/she is both an influential mediator
negatively intervening to the demonstration via news making and positively
intervening to the reproduction of a system through mind management of
audience.
Mediators can also be causal factors, rather than
negatively or positively intervening ones. Furthermore, an outcome can be a
causal or intervening factor of other outcomes.
a.
Mediation: Natural
Natural mediators are biological features of a body
and external physical environment.
It sounds wrong to say “natural mediation or
natural mediator” at first glance. Let’s take “voice” as a necessary means of
speech communication. If there were no physiological mediation, e.g., everybody
would have “indistinguishable voice.”
Natural mediators that are necessary conditions of
communication that range from physiological structure and brain to external
factors such as air.
The very characters of communication makes it
impossible to have a single necessary condition that is also sufficient conditions of communication.
In fact, we are talking about the nature (of mode
and relations) of life, when we talk about natural mediation at macro level.
b.
Mediation: immaterial
Immaterial mediation refers to ideology, ideas,
emotions, motivations, interests anything related with non-material conditions
and relations in human life
c.
Mediation: Material and Technological
A tree branch is part of the nature. Using a dry
tree branch as a stick or as a broom means that we are doing something by using
a natural object. That object is a natural mediator we use.
A human voice is natural. Activity of pushing
someone by hand, is mediated by natural human organ.
Once we shape the dry tree branch and make a
hunting spear, from that moment on, that tree branch is not the natural object
anymore; it is a technological tool for hunting, and “hunting communication” is
technologically mediated communication.
So, every cultural artifact is an outcome of
reshaping or recreating of nature and natural things by human made processes.
d.
No mediation and other factoids
In order to talk about “mediation,” there must be
an activity of some kind. Then, there is no “mediation” if a person does
nothing?
No! We have thinking, feeling, beliefs, and
self-communication, etc: They all are mediated not only by physical nature of
existence but also everything that we gain/lose in life.
Namely, there is nothing that can be considered
unmediated, once a person starts thinking and talking, acting and involving in
interaction with others.
Let’s take a non-communicative action itself:
Walking. Is there anything “mediating” in walking? We cannot achieve walking if there is no
biological communication and socialized self-communication.
Contrary to the idea on wide circulation,
technological or communication breakdown mean transition or change from one
mode of “conditions and relations” of communication to another one.
WE do not interact with objects in communication;
we use objects.
Objects, ideas, discourses manifested in text or
language do not “use” us, we “use” others or are used by others through
objects, discourses and language.
Organized time and organized space exist and they
are the integrated part of the relations of domination and struggle.
III.
TECHNOLOGICALLY MEDIATED COMMUNICATION
Technologically mediated communication refers to
communication that is realized, controlled, shaped and run through use of
hardware and software.
The above definition of communication mediated by
technology be valid only if we apply this abstraction to some sub-structures of
a society, such as mass media, internet and cell phone industries and
organizations. Because, at macro level, technology refers to the nature of
society at a certain time and place, at a certain dominant and struggling mode
and relations of human life; and technologically mediated communication refers
to the nature of communication at a certain development stage of a society.
We knowingly or unknowingly use the term of
“technology” as tools to produce, disseminate and use. The worst is that these tools
are used as stripped off the ownership and control properties.
a.
Technology
In this speech, because of the character of the
topic, technology is considered as the organized and controlled structures that
are integrated part of other organized structures in the business of producing
and disseminating material and immaterial communication products. In this sense,
technology refers to few things:
1. Organized
structures and structural relations that employ technological tools and
knowledge to produce tools of communication
2. These
produced tools of communication are used by corresponding organized structures
in order to produce:
a. Software
and user information to run the hardware,
b. Produce
immaterial content to disseminate
c. Dissemination
of immaterial content requires tools to carry or relate the content. It means
production of tools of recording, keeping,
carrying and relaying the content of communication. These tools varies from
clay tablets and papyrus used in old empires, to harddisk, DVD, USB and cloud
in our times.
b.
New technology, old ones and transformation of
society
Each tool is related with the previous ones. This
relation can be grouped under 4 categories: (1) a dependence of existence. (2) co-existence
(3) marginalizaton and (4) replacing and disappearance.
We still have film industry producing for
traditional movie theaters, televisions and internet. Newspaper and tv
organizations extended their production and dissemination activities the
internet. However, USB replaced all the previous related-tools. Cloud most
probably will replace all the storage tools.
Let’s ask the question that has a fascinating
answer in wide circulation: Did television or internet caused revolutions and
changed the prevailing mode of production and production relations in any
country? Answer is definitely, no.
Did television and internet changed the main nature
of the distribution of wealth?
Did television create information society and internet
created knowledge society? In order to answer yes, we have to have people who are
rational and pragmatic beings, who seek, find, process and use information in a
most logical and productive way to enhance their life and relations.
How can we talk about a knowledge society wherein Donald
Trump or Theresa May or neo-nazi rulers disguise as democrats and patriots? How
can we talk about knowledge society if “enemy of people” blame others as enemy
of people?
Only in Orwellian society, controlled through
creation and maintenance of widespread functional ignorance, unemployment,
hopelessness and minimum wage policies, we can have people waste their life in
front of television watching soap operas and other functional junk, and young
kids (and adults) waste their life in cyberspace constantly playing games,
chatting, twitting, watching and doing similar activities,
Did internet changed the film industries, magazine,
newspaper and televisions organizations and political structures in such a way
that nature of content of communications they produce and disseminate
transformed into something different than what they were before internet?
Did the prevailing policies of cultural, economic
and political organizations change their prevailing policies of cultivating and
maintaining certain ideas, beliefs, feelings, sensitivities, interests,
preferences and behaviors, because of television or internet?
My answer to these questions and similar ones is
this: Television, internet or any media have capacities and potentials, and
present some possibilities. That’s all. Nothing more. Internet or any
technological tool cannot do nothing. Because it has no private interests, it
has no bloody sick mind, no greed, no obsession, no goals and ambitions to
appropriate everything for itself and deprive of others from the most basic
necessities of life.
Technological tools are produced and run by tightly
organized groups of professional humanoids who consider themselves most
advanced humans. Or we can say like this: The technological tools are not
active agents with social, cultural, economic and political personal interests.
The active agents are human beings who create and use technological tools. It
means that technological tools are means that are used by humans for certain goal
attainment.
c.
Who needed communication technology for what?
According to the widespread propaganda, public demand rules;
namely, people needs and demands communications technologies and services, and
industrial structures meet these demands by supplying technology and providing
services. This phony explanation is totally wrong.
Let’s first look
at radio as an example, then the internet..
Any action or
any communicative action has always one or more reasons that we may or may not
aware of it. Reasons are tied to known and unknown needs.
Who needed
radio and for what? The common story goes like this: Someone, generally a
dropout from the university or high school, wants to invent something for the
good of everybody in his (not her) basement and invents the radio. Or it
happens suddenly just like it happened to Jimmy. Jimmy was snoozing under an
apple tree during the lunch break; a huge apple fell on his head and he heard
birds singing inside his head; He screamed: “Eureka!, a singing radio is
possible!”. Then, he ran to his humble basement, ignored his wife’s complaints,
and invented the radio. Other accounts provide slightly different story: A
young men, called McLuhan, was playing “world of warships game” in 1901.
Warships in ocean were communicating among themselves by using mirrors with
morse alphabet during the sunny days and pigeons during the nights and cloudy
days. McLuhan thought about finding a way to get ahead of the enemy by
improving communication capacity of his warships. He called Jimmy and hired him
to invent the radio. After Jimmy invented the radio, McLuhan fired Jimmy and
got the patent for the radio for himself. He talked to the CİA and pentagon
about the invention and first, navy started using radio in peace mangling,
blackmail and war making business. Other sections of military followed the
navy. It is the private enterprise world: All the revenue potentials were
explored beyond military; and radios were sold to schools, later to businesses
and lastly to individuals.
Let’s check the internet
example:
İnternet is the best example of university, pentagon and
private industry cooperation for enhancing the US military domination to serve
the corporate interests all over the world.
The organizing, funding and ruling part in the
creation of internet was the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency,
(DARPA). The agency was an advanced-technology branch of the U.S. Department of
Defense. The DARPA established the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network
(ARPANET) in 1960s. The creation of ARPANET eventually evolved to the Internet
we know today.
The first name in the triad cooperation is J. C. R. Licklider who worked at the MIT university. His
first important military connection started in early 1950s and led to the
creation of the Lincoln Laboratory that produced the Semi-Automatic Ground
Environment system design. It was called SAGE program. The program was
"established in 1954 by the US Air Force to develop a continental air
defense system to protect against a nuclear bomber attack from the Soviet
Union. In 1962 Licklider became the director of the Information Processing
Techniques Office at DARPA.
The second name in the cooperation was Paul Baran from
RAND corporation. The RAND corporation was (and still is) a global policy
think tank created in 1948 by Douglas Aircraft Company to offer research and
analysis to the United States Armed Forces. Paul Baran’s work led to the foundation for the World Wide Web.
I am not going to bore you with details of cooperation
among pentagon, university and private corporations.
The basic aim of the ARPANET was to develop a defense
network that could function in the time of a nuclear war. The main mode of
communication in war was centralized and linear. It means, for instance, that
if a break happens in the linear connection, it was impossible to get in touch
with other troops in the battle field. The basic question was this: How could any sort of “command and control
network” survive during and after the war? To answer this problem, they created
network of communication links that remind an advanced spider net.
Now, we have internet at home.
Do we really have internet at home like spider net?
Let’s spend few minutes on this question.
IV.
ORGANIZING FOR CONTENT PRODUCTION
Organizing for content production in traditional mass media
requires (a) establishment of a media organization and (a) hiring personnel and
division of labor.
In internet, we have organizations that (a) provide service
for hardware connection, (b) provide
service for software for users to produce content and (c) provide content.
Internet content
providers (ICPs) are website or
organization that handles the distribution of online content such as blogs,
videos, music or files. This content is generally made accessible to users and
often in multiple formats, such as in both texts and videos. There are several
different types of ICPs. Many of these providers are news sites, which provide
up-to-the-minute information on breaking news, or in-depth commentary on
current issues. Other providers focus on entertainment, such as Netflix, which
allows users to watch movies and some TV shows online over the Internet. Some
other content providers offer informative content about varieties of topics by
hiring freelance editors and writers to write, edit and provide quality
content.
Most ICPs make money through advertising on their sites. They may elect
to use an advertising network, or sell ads privately. Some providers also have
premium memberships which require a set fee per month in order to access
exclusive content. This is known as a paywall. Non-paying members are kept out
or only given limited access.
Many content providers
are also developing content unique to them and only available to members.
Traditional media providers such as TV and newspapers are also either working
with these providers or competing against them by providing their own online
content.
(SKİP BLUES in
presentation)
Internet content providers include:
·
Traditional media companies that offer resources
on the Internet (e.g., New York Times, Wall Street Journal,book
publishers, music companies)
·
New media companies (e.g., Apple, Netflix,
Rhapsody) that provide content produced by other companies or individuals
·
Web syndicators (in which syndicates partner
with content producers to help them distribute their work)
·
Aggregators (companies that collect content from
various online and offline sources)
·
Curators (companies or individuals that
continually search the Web to find the best information about a particular
topic)
·
Content farms (companies that employ many
freelancers to create large amounts of content quickly)
·
Individuals who create their own content (blogs,
books, apps, music, online games and Web comics) for publication on the Web.
·
Theological and metaphysical interest
organizations and sex merchants that
have their own services or create their own content.
V.
NATURE OF CONTENT
a. Basics
Production of the content includes:
- what to produce: includes
types and character of content
- how
to produce: refers to organization
of production processes and
producing according to prevailing Professional
practices and professional ideology.
………..
The First Products
are carriers of the content.
They are outputs such as news reports, ovies, television programs, magazine articles, newspaper columns, music videos, youtube videos, and all kinds of internet outputs.
They are outputs such as news reports, ovies, television programs, magazine articles, newspaper columns, music videos, youtube videos, and all kinds of internet outputs.
……….
The Second Product is the content that media product
carry
The content is constructed in order to
cultivate (create)
The content is constructed in order to
cultivate (create)
maintain (sustain)
expand and advance
revise, if necessary
discart and replace, if
necessary
…………
Contents embedded in the carrying products are to
create or reproduce:
. Certain ideas, thoughts, beliefs
. Certain ideas, thoughts, beliefs
. Certain preferences,
interests, expectations
. Certain behaviors at work and leisure time
. Certain
behaviors in every moments of daily life
. Certain
demands for production of products and services
……….
. Certain types of customers, viewers, readers, users
. Certain types of voters, followers, fans
. enemies, friends, (us and them)
. and many more…
. Certain types of voters, followers, fans
. enemies, friends, (us and them)
. and many more…
……………..
What are the prevailing outcome of such cultivation
Outcome is a typical individual who:
a.
perceives
himself/herself as a free flowing entity for himself/herself, and additionally
for his/her country.
……………….
b.
seeks to gain self-worth,
self-actualization, interpersonal importance, coolness, statue and the like
through buying, using and consuming products and services of cosmetic, fashion,
food and beverage and warfare industries.
……………..
c.
eagerly supports
and is ready to participate in political activities that coerce and even murder
those who are declared as enemy, “dangerous other”, infidel, heretic, anti-Christ
or the like.
d.
talks about
freedom of thought and expression for himself/herself as a media professional,
but cannot stand anybody who criticize him/her.
e.
defends
women/men/child/gay rights in such a way that he becomes a part, peon or
trigger puller of “divide, set them against each other and rule” policies.
f.
thinks that
he/she is defending democracy, freedom and his/her country by displaying
hostile attitude towards people who demonstrate against any kind of injustice,
inequality, discrimination, poverty, minimum wage.
g.
thinks he/she is
against fascism, but supports anti-humanism under the pretext of nationalism,
patriotism, being true believer, etc. (example: invited to speak in a meeting
organized by a state agency to open the protected area for tourism. Question:
the environmentalist? No, human? You? No
answer. Insisted: Elhadulillah Muslim. But aren’t you human being first? No
answer).
h.
spends most of
his/her leisure time in the Shopping Malls and buys things because he/she likes
it at the moment, not because he/she needs it.
i.
spends good
amount of his/her daily interactions
with friends, relatives and familiar people by talking about the things that
soap opera characters wear, eat, drink and do.
j.
buys “quality
things” in order to show his/her love and affection, rather than “doing
something for or sharing something with” the loved ones: Buys love and
affection through buying industrial products.
k.
eats, drinks and
wears not only to meet his/her physical need, but get high gratifications from
eating, drinking and wearing “status.”
l.
is not only a
good customer and consumer, at the same time he/she is a loyal repeating
audience, listener, facebook user and habitual Amazon, Walmart and Ebay
customer.
m.
is democrat and
modern in outlook, but also an devoted conservative, truly religious and a patriot.
n.
has no idea at
all why he has a beard like ISIS or EL-Kaide terorists.
İn short, he/she is a
special person of interest who has been molded to be very functional for the
ruling forces not only now, but throughout the human history.
…………………..
Media professionals and
owners pursue certain feedbacks from their listeners, audience and users.
Let’s look at the purpose of
media content in terms of “feedbacks sought”
……………………..
feedbacks that are expected from people:
1. to view, use, read, download again
2. to acquire certain ideas,
attitudes etc.
3. to reproduce the agendas set by media via daily social relations
4. to employ relational
pressures to others
5. To act and force others to act according to
media induced ways in buying and consuming.
--------------
VI.
CONTENT
CONTROL AND PUBLIC POLICY
Content control of media and internet products can be
grouped under following way:
(1) Organizational
control thru professional practice and professional ideologies
(2) Control
embedded in inter organizational (business) relations
(3) Control
by state agencies (via laws and regulations; secret and clandestine activities)
(4) Control
by interest groups and pressure groups (i.e., trade associations, profession
groups, audience groups, NGOs)
(5) Audience/user
control via induced-preferences.
(6) Control
of user (through organizational and legal control)
Application of
control points:
a. before production processes: It is exclusion at the
mental/conceptual level. It is the screening and excluding through ideological
and personal vested interests. It is also legal screening to escape from
punishment.
b. during production processes: If any problem emerged that
requires exclusion and revision during the production, control intervention is
applied. Content control for serving the special and other dominant interests
at this stage is the most crucial one that pronounces the success and failure
in mind and behavior management business. Prevailing content production method
at this stage is to catch the fish by construction of content in such a way
that fish doesn’t feel like he/she is caught, but he/she prefers it by
employing freedom of choice. That’s why the most effective censorship is the
conquest of mind, conscience, interest
and preference that are cultivated through communications media.
c. After production: (1) You write/produce your piece and editor
asks for revisions or takes it and throws it into garbage or takes it, says
nothing, and next day you see that your piece is not published. (2) State
agencies asks you to submit it to them before publication. (3) State agencies
tells you not to publish it; (4) you get a call from your boss or from someone
who makes you an offer that you cannot refuse.
d. After publishing and
distribution: It is easy in internet: Service manager or state authorities
blocks any access to it. In mass media tv and radio broadcasting of it stops;
screen blacks out; suddenly, a new program starts. Some screens on movies are
removed or it is totally taken out of circulation. Books are collected, dumped
or burned.
e. During and after user
access: The later access is terminated, blocked, refused. Or if he/she accesses
same content more than few times, he/she is punished, even put in jail for
terrorist activities. If it is a book or magazine, he is punished for having
it.
All kinds of content control are related with promoting
dominant
ideas, beliefs,
prevailing
moral and ethical values,
emotions,
preferences, interests,
good and bad,
foe and friend and,
behaviors.
How is this promotion done?
At least two familiar ways of control
processes are used:
(a) Exlusion: (excluding the unwanted)
and (b) inclusion (including the preferred ones).
a. Exclusion: In exclusion, i.e,, media professionals pretend as if
it does not exist; pretend as if it is too marginal; pretend as if it has no
worth/value for mentioning; do not include if it is against their ideas and
interests; do not include if it is against the interest of those who first
deprive the media professional from meeting his/her most basic means of survival,
then hire him/her to produce wealth for them and create material and mental
poverty for himself/herself and others.
b.
Inclusion:
Two kinds of inclusion are used: The first one is inclusion of dominant ideas
and behaviors. What is the second one?
Great majority of students, including graduate students in Turkey see this kind
of inclusion every single day, but great majority of them are not aware of them,
because of the same reason my students at Queens College in New York did not
know meaning of at least 20 words that I used in the class (I wrote them on
blackboard in order to ask). One of them was “indoctrination.” May I see the hands of those students who
knows the second kind of inclusion? (As I told you before, İ am not testing you
and your knowledge; I am testing something else: Positivist justification that
the audience research provide ample evidence that the communications media meet
the interests, demands and wants of people).
Let’s think about the
movie titled as “The Good, The Bad and the Ugly” in terms of inclusion that is
not binary. (if you did not see the movie, just reflect
your thinking on the title).
Content
control is not applied only by exclusion but also by inclusion of the unwanted.
This kind of inclusion always exist in almost all media content. It is called
distorted presentation, misrepresentation, partial or outright lying,
demonizing, degrading, mud-throwing and the like.
There is an
exemption to the exclusion through de-promoting: It sounds and looks like
de-promoting, but in fact it is a sneaky promotion by, i.e., drawing attention
of the audience: The best example is censoring the cigarette, alcohol and
nudity on tv and movies by blurring, icing or putting a flower picture over it.
The second example is related with promotion of cigarette smoking by writing
“cigarette kills” or “cigarette causes impotence.” It is well known that using
high level/dose of fear creates two reactions: Denial and no change in believers
and users, and intensified opposition in ideas and behaviors among
disapprovers, non-believers and non-users. So, if you have no or little choice,
you use the highest level of fear in order to sustain and promote a product
like cigarette and alcohol or promote a behavior that is rooted in biological
desires, but regarded as sin or original sin. High level of punishment
increases the risk, thus decreases the number of participants; however the risk
becomes dysfunctional, if reward is seen as worth to take the risk. (i.e. if he/she
is highly dedicated, has a high level of conviction, he/she is true believer who
wants to go heaven by taking the risk, he/she is addicted, the bodily cravings
take over the decision making of mental processes.
1. Organizational
Control: Self-regulation
It is application of professional
ideology in their daily practices of production of content.
It is the most hideous control, because
it is presented as if media professionals are the source and actors of freedom; as if what they do is objective and
responsible professionalism.
Only owners, managers and professional
producers can exert control in constructing the content. The rest cannot
construct or change it.
Social media managers may regulate
speech by content and users that are hostile to some groups. Facebook, Twitter
and the like do not allow attacks based on race, ethnicity, national origin,
religious affiliation, sexual orientation, and gender.
Internet, like all
other mass media, are economic and political institutions; to make money.
economic: They are designed to make
money.
Political: They re designed to
cultivate life style for capitalist industrial system.
İnternet comprised of four groups:
a. users who generate content: They can only
self-regulate their product.
b. users who consume content: Their
self-regulation emerge from the selective exposure and selective avoidance.
c. users who generate commercial speech
(advertising): These users are professionals who put ads in internet. These
users are professionals in multi-billion dollar commerce and advertising
industries. Their intervention and intrusion to the general users’ information
and uses are control free. They are untouchables!
d. Internet service providers: provide Internet access to
companies, families, and mobile users:
China Mobile, China Telekom, AT&T
e. Internet platform managers: mngrs of
facebook, instegram, Sina Weibo and Tencent Weibo, AliBaba. They have the
freedom not to publish or block or dump any account and content.
There is normalized
control exercised over content by the media editors in mass media. journal,
magazine and book publishers have a right to editorial discretion over what to
publish. This editorial control is extended to the internet, Like editors and
publishers, internet platform managers/owners decide on what will appear on
their platform.
They not only block or
remove the content, but also provide ideological and other kinds of control by,
for instance, ranking the content in such a way that your piece is not seen and
not read. Facebook does make certain categories
of false speech more difficult to find.
They dump some accounts, such as
neo-nazi, leftists and unwanted accounts.
Control of mass media
by editors is exercised before publishing. The exercise of content control by
the internet service provider or platform manager generally after it is posted
and it is found to have content that violated a platform’s policy.
Exempting social media
providers from defamation, obscenity, and other responsibilities is basically
based on the reason that they can not be
treated as the publisher because they are only the providers of service.
This is the classic protection of owners and runners from the responsibility.
This protection is presented as if it is to encourage an unregulated
development of free speech on the Internet.
Social media
are privately owned forums for speech. It means that any intervention is
against the freedom of speech.
The media
professional learn self-regulation:
It is applicaton of professional
ideology in their daily production of content. They perform their job like
this, because:
(1) İt is how they are, thus they do not have to force
themselves to produce junk, mindless consumerism, hostility towards certain
groups, indifference and the like.
(2) it is how they became: They have to apply professional
practices according to the interest of the media organizations and interest of
the nation state; otherwise, they suddenly find themselves unemployed or
jailed.
İn internet, control of the service providers includes (1) control by
focusing on only one specific topic. (2) They can refuse to give you service,
stop your service permanently or for a certain time until you meet their
requirements.
Technology companies dump some content, such as neo-nazi, leftists and
unwanted accounts. It is not mainly because they support freedom of people; it
is because they calculate and are forced to acknowledge that it is beneficial
for them, for instance, not to lose customers.
There is little legitimate governance of speech on the internet, but there
are justified ones.
Internet filtering solution can stop email phishing, block access to
dangerous websites. This kind of intervention is justifiable for organizations
concerned about their cybersecurity, about preventing web users from visiting
webpages harboring malware and computer viruses, and unintentionally transferring
them to an organization´s computer system.
2.
Control embedded in inter organizational (business)
relations
This kind of control emerges when media owners and producers
have economic, cultural or political relations with other powerful entities.
The control of content become necessary in case of conflict of interest emerge
because of the content. For instance, media owners and professionals do not put
their beneficial relations with advertising clients in jeopardy by
disseminating a content that bothers the client or “business or politician
friend”.
3.
Content Control by State Organs
Control of state agencies are employed through laws and regulations,
and covert an overt activities that jam a broadcasting, block the access to the
certain providers, blogs, contents, user etc.
İnternet cannot escape from the state control even if there
is no single law and regulation directly include the internet. The severe
restrictions come from not communications law and regulations, but come from
other ones. Because there are laws, like sedition act, espionage act, national
security concerns and moral codes that can be used to put a person in jail for
long time for his/her thoughts or activity in internet and mass media.
In the USA,
protecting national security also means preventing foreign powers from
influencing American elections. For instance, İn the USA, in February 2018, 13
Russians were indicted for intervening in the 2016 U.S. election. Trump was
under attach for the same reason.
Double
standards exist in the western politics: They do not want anybody intervene
with their own elections, but they intervene elections of every country in the
world.
In any case, there is a need country specific and commonly accepted and
applied internet regulation among the countries. However, governments cannot stifle
the development of the Internet, because the development of the internet is organized
and run by international capital and their guardians.
What
do goverments/states/organizations do in terms of censoring?
1.
Withholding information:
hide and donot give the information;
punish those journalists and whistle
blowers who act contrarily;
Example:
censored information that comes out of war via embedded journalists The less
people see the war, the more likely they believe it is a good thing.
Example: make
the books inaccessible in libraries by saying that “it is taken by a reader”
(somebody takes them so that no one reads them)
2. destroying
information:
it is done in order to make it impossible
to access the information/knowledge.
Well known
examples: burning books or libraries, destroying historical monuments. (library
burning: Serbian army in 1990s)
changing the
street names in order to erase a known person’s name from public memory.
Removing the
names of some historical persons from the history books.
3. Altering
information:
a. presenting it out of context:
example: “Marx is the enemy of
religion
because he said “religion is opium of
people.”
b. Erasing a person from a picture
c. Replacing a persons/politicians head with
somebody else’s head and put it in wide circulation in media. (especially
during election times, Turkish internet is full of them)
d. Adding or subtracting frames from the
visual record of an incident (A journalist’s reaction when Trump’s aid who tried to take the mike
from him)
e. Providing false information in history
books
example: Japanese textbooks on the brutal
invasion of China during second world war.
f. Jamming: altering the broadcasting signal
to make it unintelligible.
4. Nurturing
self-censorship
a. Coercive
organizational culture. example: fear of getting fired
b. Dominant
professional ideology and dominant professional practices:
“Monkey sees, monkey does”
c.
Personal
character and calculations of self-interest that fit in the practices of
self-censorship
5. Banning and
punishing
Expressing, disseminating and/or using:
. Verbal
expression of ideas
. Written
and printed expression
.
Expression through drawing, cartoons, comics
. Visual
expressions from still picture to movies
. Non-verbal
expression
Reasons for
state control, banning and punishment:
(a)
National security and protecting the national interests.
Examples: Advocacy of overthrow of government; Betrayal of
national secrets; terrorist activities;
immediate danger; instructions on bomb-making, illegal drug production.
Incitement and speech presenting some grave and imminent threat
the government and state are severely
punished only if it is expressed by certain unwanted political groups or
individuals with undesirable ideas.
But politicians (the most recent example is Trump) use
incitement, divisive language, false and potentially harmful and dangerous
language, and nobody puts them in jail.
The term national security
generally refers to safeguarding people, territory, and way of life. It is a
very elusive term that can be used easily.
(b)
Protecting moral values, public good, public interest, public safety
Moral codes: Moral codes: what are right and wrong in
human conduct?
example: obscene and indecent materials such as child
pornography
Everyting
can be used to punish you by using public good, public interest and public
safety.
(c)
Harmful speech Examples:
· Incitement to immediate violence
· Degradation
of women
· Racist,
sexist, homophobic “hate speech.”
·
Advocacy of violence
·
To teach about communism in California
schools, except denigrate it
·
Fake news and misinformation: Many nations tend
to regulate fake news.
Freedom of speech and commerce/trade: Social
media companies are enterprises engaging in commercial transactions, thus they
are regulated by trade laws. This is the important reason that the online activities of social media
companies have considerable protection from government regulations especially
in the western countries.
Censorship has always been a political tool in order to punish, coerce and
silence the groups, professionals and individuals who are anti-establishment or
anti-government.
State censorship is set to protect the system or subsystem by punishing those
who think and act as against the dominant interests.
If censorship or banning something functions really for the benefit
of general public, rather than for
powerful private interests, then it is justifiable because it is a preventive
measure for the benefit everybody. For instance, law that will eliminate tobacco
related production and distribution is a preventive measure that eliminates an
outcome by eliminating the cause. Another example: Production and distribution
of processed food and beverages that are dangerous for the public health should
not be produced: Nobody has right or freedom to put others’ life in danger for
his/personal wealth and justify it through the freedom of business or freedom trade.
Under the dominant conditions of normalized abnormality, it is normal not
to expect regulations and practices for the benefit of public from the states
that represent and protect the interest of capitalist private enterprises.
Controls of content are mostly cunningly managed ones and mostly functions
to the mind and behavior management.
4.
Control by interest/pressure groups
These groups can employ pressure only to the produced
content and uses of them.
Some of these groups are:
Trade and similar associations, environmentalist groups,
political parties, labor unions, and NGOs.
All are part of the private and general interest groups that
exert control over media practices and on the nature of content.
These groups can employ pressure only to the produced
content and uses of them.
5.
Audience/user control via induced-preferences.
A censor's goal is achieved if it is difficult for most users most of
the time to access most of the materials.
·
Self-regulation
of users: This refers to user preferences. This self induced control acts
inclusion and exclusion of certain type of media, channels, programs, service
providers, search engines, blogs, topics and content within a topic.
·
Censorship at work place: Online playing, chatting, twitting and, shopping
during working hours. It is justified by explaining that the workers time is
hired for working, not for private activities.
·
Diminishing “access” to “products”: It means decreasing freedom to consume every possible
junk produced and put in circulation in television and internet) It is. inescapable if large, medium and countless
small companies dominate the production and the distribution of internet
software and content.
·
Punishing the user by access type and content production: For instance, it is crime to view terrorist-related
material online more than 2 times in England, with a penalty of, for instance,
up to 15 years in jail. (How about
organizing, funding and running terrorist organizations, fake news groups or
fake NGO by the CİA, MI5 or MI6 operatives? Who is going to punish them?
So, we have access to media. Let’s see kinds of main
accesses we have:
(a)
All kinds of advertising, consumer information on products
and services (e.g. Amazon, wall Mart, AliBaba)
(b)
Leisure time activities ranging from using online/internet
games to animated films.
(c)
Sex related written and visual materials.
(d)
Religious and metaphysical materials.
(e)
Blogs and the like for personal interests and various
gratifications
(f)
All kinds of political, economic and cultural materials put
by politicians, their paid servants, voluntary servants, propagandists,
imposters, deceivers, disinformers, fake experts and internet trolls.
(g)
Professional information and professional materials,
including research articles (some are not free) for disseminating and
sustaining professional ideologies and professional practices.
(h)
In short, anything functional that you can think of.
Public Policy
Public policy sounds
like policy that public puts forward or policy that is set according to the
general interests. Both accounts are false. First one is obvious: Public do not
decide and set policies. The second one is a functional democracy game that
transforms the policies of certain interest that are most of the time against
the public interest into general interests. State organs think and plan and create the policy. This
policy presented as policy for protecting public. In fact, it is rarely for
protecting the public; but mostly for protecting the state and its real owners
from the public demanding various rights and asking for better wages, better
working conditions, job security and the like.
Main starting points of regulation of technology, remain
same since oldest empires: To control and thus sustain the general system and
subsystems. Public policies are revised and new ones are added according to the
potential and claimed dangers of individual
and organized uses of media products.
Private vs state/government control dichotomy
The dominant idea is that media professionals/editors and private content
moderators should have the power to regulate speech on media, not the
government bodies. This argument is based on the idea of good private and bad
government. This duality is based on a fake and baseless idea. At least because
the private and state or government work together to advance the private
interests especially since the triumph of privatization policy.
Mass media and internet comprise various kind of speech. Mostly the
specific political speech and speech related with dominant structures and
relations are subject to restrictions and punishment by private and government
forces.
İn internet, such as neo-nazi, leftist and terrorist groups
and contents are excluded by the largest platforms. Outside them, internet is
full of political hate speech, Fraud, threat, defamation, obscenity, pornography and the like. State policies are
mostly ineffective.
Similar ineffective policy exist in “hate speech” (offensive
words, about or directed toward a person, a political person or political,
cultural and economic entity). In politics, in many countries, hate speech by
public authorities and their voluntary and paid servants/trolls in internet
became routine part of our daily life.
Political ones are functional for the divide and rule policy. Others are
functional for personal escape and diversion that are extremely helpful in political
and economic management of people.
Acknowledgement of
freedom of speech and right to hear others speech in the constitutions and
public policy statements of nation states does not mean anything. Because any
kind of freedom always requires necessary conditions of using such
freedoms. The west and its satellites
have abstract freedoms for the most of population and concrete freedom for the
small minority.
·
“Commercial transaction vs freedom of
speech”
·
There is
a serious disagreement on the issue concerning “Commercial transaction vs freedom of speech”. Because accepting or
rejecting a trade interaction as freedom of speech has diametrically
different outcomes. if place the
regulation of commercial transaction within the freedom of speech, state cannot
regulate it. If you keep it outside the freedom of speech, then it is subject
to regulations. In fact, the two are separate: A journalist’s or news maker’s
work falls in the scope of freedom of speech. But media owner and administrator
perform commercial transaction, thus, they cannot enjoy the protection of
freedom of speech. Claiming that prohibiting or restricting means prohibiting
and restricting users’ right to free speech looks like drug dealer’s argument. It reminds me “press freedom” as freedom of
owners. “Copy right” of the book writer in Turkey as the right of the publisher,
that eliminates the right of the writer.
|
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