Officials with the lowest approval ratings in the world (Macron, Starmer, Merz, Sanchez) are the loudest champions of social media bans for teens and ‘misinformation’ crackdowns.
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Samizdata quote of the day – a total coincidence of courseThomas Fairfax (Yorkshire) · Civil liberty, Law & Regulation · Internet · Slogans & Quotations · Totalitarianism February 8th, 2026 |
 10 comments to Samizdata quote of the day – a total coincidence of courseLeave a Reply |
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Are their ratings low because they want the crackdown or do they want the crackdown because of their low ratings? I suspect it’s a bit from Column A and a bit from Column B.
It is a mistake to think of Macron, Starmer and Sanchez as independent individuals making decisions.
They are part of the international establishment, with all its attitudes – they are not independent, they serve the same agenda as the officials and “experts”.
Re “approval ratings”, part of that is their presence, persona on social media. Which is rife with memes ridiculing these bozos.
However, I wonder if the memes, and especially the wonderful AI generated images and videos, have saturated most people? Sarcasm and ridicule only work at a certain frequency and intensity. Too much of these and the ridicule falls flat, just part of the noise.
My tolerance is quite high…I still can’t get enough of the AI stuff making these guys look even more ludicrous than they are. But I might be an outlier.
I’ve been taking it as read for a while that the point of banning children from social media is to prevent them seeing anything to counter the Government propaganda in school and on TV.
@Barbarus
And rather disturbingly the current UK Government is pushing for the voting age to be dropped to 16. ‘Children’ who become ‘voters’ overnight with only the ‘approved’ education to inform them.
I’ve been taking it as read for a while that the point of banning children from social media is to prevent them seeing anything to counter the Government propaganda in school and on TV.
– Actually, I’m coming to consider part of the social media ban for children to be eminently sensible. It makes them less likely to walk out in front of traffic and get run-over while addictedly scrolling their cellphones – statistics for which I’m afraid to look-up – and for some years in the U.S., the #1 killer of teenagers has been texting while driving. I’m pretty sure I would support legislation establishing “Safe Spaces” for people to use cellphones for scrolling the ‘net, with penalty of confiscation for anybody outside the zone who’s caught using them in a manner that endangers themselves and/or others.
My 2 cents’ worth…
But that’s not the point. If I had children, I’d also be keeping them off social media. The point is for the STATE to keep children off social media, that requires every adult to prove who they are to access social media. Once you have that infrastructure in place, all it takes is a change in policy to keep *anyone* off social media at the flick of a switch.
THAT is the issue.
Yes indeed Perry.
I think that consumer spending power can sometimes work like an unofficial form of democracy. The following post about EVs for example. The stupidity and hubris of the political class is running up against the ordinary folks refusing to buy them. See also Budweiser and Gillette.
Stonyground
The agenda (international agenda) was never for most people to buy electric cars – the agenda was (and is) for most people not-to-have-cars (hence “15 minute communities” and “high density homes” – blocks of flats).
As for what people were to spend their “Basic Income” on – the “money” (electronic credit – an idea that was explored in nightmare science fiction many years ago) was to be programmed so that people had to spend it on the products of “partner corporations”, if it was not spent in a certain amount of time, the “money” would vanish. And the “money” would have to be spent on certain products – from certain trusted providers (partner corporations). Dissent would be impossible – because if people expressed the “wrong” opinions they would lose their flats (which they would not own – “you will own nothing”) and their “Basic Income” would stop.
Remember the International Community is not just made up of government officials – it is also made up of Corporate Executives.
It is all far more Henri Saint-Simon rather than Karl Marx.
To borrow an image from George Orwell – the future that the International Community (and its pet media – such as the Economist magazine) wants, is a boot stamping down upon and grinding a human face – for ever.