For quality information on social media, it is better to look for the “hidden gems” with interesting backgrounds who are mentally and psychologically free from a conflated following that is boosted by bots, not for the people with the blue check marks. Also, the amount or number of comments, retweets, and likes associated with a person does not amount to a direct reflection of broader reality. There is more to reality than just blind consumption, algorithms which have led to lies spreading six times faster than the truth, irrationality, and stupidity.
Hence, Twitter is essentially a cesspool of toxicity and the equivalent of an intellectual junkyard and trash dump. Moreover, Twitter has only about 200 million active users in a world of about 7.8 billion people. That amounts to only about 2.5 percent of the world’s population. To elevate Twitter to the level of global or public opinion – which some people in the mainstream like to do – and to render generalizations regarding global or public opinion based on Twitter amounts to a logical fallacy and is both deceptive and misleading.
The issue of whether propaganda is solely a tool or instrument of de jure states or whether propaganda can also be a tool and instrument of non-state actors is largely an academic issue that is up for debate. And as mentioned before, official or mainstream propaganda in many countries is not as effective in convincing and persuading people as it was in the past because of globalization and technology. Thus, it is not a good look both domestically and globally for state agencies who are beneath the office of a president or former president to raid the home of a former president whose ideas and views reflected those of most people in his country. Such moves can backfire instead of paying off, and it can convey the image of a ‘banana republic’ rather than the image of a major power. Moreover, whether it is the targeting of Martin Luther King Jr. or raiding the home of a former president who was popularly elected and whose ideas and views represented those of most people, it all goes to show that “law enforcement” is essentially a tool of the rich and powerful which is used to crush and suppress both regular people as well as those who represent regular people.
In turn, the false promises of change and progress and the stupid laughs which emanated from the likes of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris ended up translating into third-world raids of political opponents and inflation. Much hype has been generated around the recent “climate change” bill passed in Congress. But as in the case of previous bills such as the one relating to infrastructure, to a large extent, it all amounts to the doling out and splitting of the “spoils” garnered from taxpayer money between Washington insiders, and as usual, about 70 or 80 percent of Americans see no benefit in such bills. If Washington really cared about regular people, they would cut regular people’s taxes instead of taking taxpayer money and raising taxes surreptitiously and unceremoniously and then spending the taxpayer money on bills which 70 or 80 percent of people see as futile and useless.
Then there is the issue of Salman Rushdie. It is not an unknown fact that Salman Rushdie has been a much-used propaganda tool for countries like Britain and the United States for many years. One must note that propaganda is similar to other forms of communication in the sense that one of the key aims of propaganda is to stir the emotions or feelings of those on the receiving end of the propaganda. Thus, the best thing to do would be to stir people’s emotions and feelings in a good way and not in a manner which offends or insults the beliefs and feelings of people, especially the beliefs and feelings of approximately two billion people in the name of “free speech” and so forth, just so that one can get acknowledgment, recognition, and a pat on the back from a toxic liberal. If anything, the case of Salman Rushdie demonstrates both the adverse outcomes and the dangers associated with striving for acknowledgment, recognition, and a pat on the back from toxic mainstream liberals.
Adam A. Azim 