The following GAB article snippet raises key questions. ...

“

• It has been widely reported that Taliban leaders used Facebook’s WhatsApp and Twitter to help capture Kabul. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid enjoys free reign on Twitter with an account that has over 300,000 followers.

• Facebook’s WhatsApp has become the de facto communication platform of the Taliban, who reportedly used the service to spread propaganda, communicate with residents of Kabul, and share official statements with the world.

• In messages apparently distributed to Kabul residents via the messaging group WhatsApp, the group proclaimed that “we are in charge of security for Kabul.” The messages listed telephone numbers in various neighborhoods that citizens should call if they saw problems such as looting or “irresponsible” behavior on the part of armed individuals. Source

• Meanwhile Twitter and Facebook banned the sitting President of the United States back in January and millions of conservative Christians face shadowbans, deplatforming, and blacklisting at the hands of Big Tech companies. If you are a Christian conservative in the United States of America you are treated worse and have less freedom online than the Taliban.

• The significance of Big Tech’s involvement in the destabilization of Afghanistan is largely being ignored by the likes of the ADL, SPLC, and the many other activist groups who for years have lobbied Big Tech platforms, hosting providers, payment processors, and more to deplatform and defame Gab and our community.

• Facebook and Twitter are once again getting a pass for the many horrors of humanity that they allow to occur on their platforms, while Gab is demonized and deplatformed for giving a home to political dissidents in the United States and other Western countries. ...”

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Some questions: What should be the rules of censorship? Who should establish those rules? Who should be the enforcer(s)?

These are difficult questions in this ever increasingly borderless world full of divergent perspectives.

The article seems to be self-contradicting. President Trump (and an enormous number of people with conservative perspectives) are censored (ie Bad censorship); while liberals and people seeking to speak and organize in a way that we don’t like are given free reign (ie lack of good censorship).

In my opinion, this multifaceted issue should be tackled (in simultaneous, non-conflicting segments) including well defined (and readily accessible to the public) rules and consequences for breaking rules. It must not impinge on the rights of any of the users while banning all activities that are against the law.

Now that becomes almost impossible with multi-national platforms that span every country and every ideological faction with access to the web. For this reason, there must be a type of virtual “border wall”. This electronic gatekeeper would need to block disallowed data from entering the borders of countries where the content is illegal while leaving it available to those within the borders of where this is legal. It may even require the breaking up of the multinational behemoth companies that can’t/refuse to accomplish this.

Wouldn’t this leave people around the world disconnected from each other? Possibly for a short while in the transition time. However linking disparate systems with gatekeepers is a far less daunting task than you may think.

I speak from the perspective of a former military systems (hardware, software and communications) engineers (along with SMEs and Technical experts) to connect the systems that provided defensive air pictures and passing of various levels of classified information/data for many different allied nations around the world. In some ways this proposal would be less challenging than ours was and in other ways it would be more challenging, but our government budget was Lipton down to several million dollars, while TwitTurd and FaceCrook make more in profiting from their platforms in a day than the American government spent throughout the entire project. They have teams of some of the most knowledge engineers in the world that could knock this out in no time.

Who establishes and enforces the rules would depend upon the nation/state and their laws (in the US our constitution and laws would establish them and our justice system would enforce them. Along with that, states have the ability to further restrict). Monopolies are easily broken up and forced to comply when the will is there.

Now this only deals with the “legal” operation of the companies. Clearly there are illegal ways around anything (eg the dark web). This also doesn’t stop our enemy states from using these platforms to attack and harm us. That’s where the military’s responsibility comes in. We, in the US, have a cyber command that should be used more wisely. They have capabilities that have been blocked by ignorant politicians, but our military leadership shares some of the blame for this. The generals tend to be ignorant of our cyber capabilities and therefore are incapable of recognizing the things about which they should be educating their political handlers. As I said early in this opinion, this is a multifaceted problem that must be broken down and handled simultaneously.