Vietnam Memorial & the deceptions of war

Vietnam memorial (J. David Ake :AP) Nov 16 2016

Twitter announced it suspended accounts of white nationalists who were allowed free rein during the election campaign. Nothing to applaud about that. It’s an assault on freedom of speech on social media.

There is widespread & outrageous censorship on FB, not of hate sites but of feminist & antiwar, Palestinian, Kashmiri, & Rohingya solidarity, & other progressive sites. We’re not in a strong position to oppose censorship of our posts on social media if we endorse it for right-wing sites. The ultimate goal of censoring white nationalists is to justify increasing censorship of progressive activists who use social media to get past news blackouts & media distortions of freedom struggles. It’s been essential for human rights activists. Khurram Parvez is in jail indefinitely for using it to expose India’s human rights crimes in Kashmir.

A white nationalist is going to be the US president. Several countries have such rats as leaders & are sustaining the growth of extremist & nationalist forces. We need social media to communicate & collaborate with each other.

Freedom of speech is fundamental to social transformation. Those arrested, disappeared, tortured, murdered for exercising it testify to that. None of us cares if nationalists have a platform for their hate speech but if we allow them to be censored, it is just a matter of time before they come for us.