Technological instant cutting out of the media space of the then still acting US President Donald Trump, without exaggeration, shocked the whole world. Innumerable comments about the advent of the digital dictatorship, down to theories about, that the whole story with the emergence and massive spread of social networks was originally an insidious project of the special services: they say, lured everyone into them with unprecedented opportunities for self-expression, and then once - and slammed in a digital concentration camp.
but I think, this is pure conspiracy, simply because, that unlimited, more precisely, uncontrolled freedom of speech and expression, best characterized by the word "freeman", if where and when existed, then only a relatively short period after the revolutionary upheavals, related to crushing, so to speak, overt dictatorship.
So what is next, even without taking a frank reaction, when power is usurped from the Cromwells and Napoleons, a political system was formed with formal and informal rules of the game, with the main political parties alternating in power and even "eternal", but at the same time, systemic oppositionists.
Nuances can be different, there are presidential and parliamentary forms of government, somewhere a multi-party system has developed, somewhere - bipartisan, and in some places the "one and a half party", both in Japan and until relatively recently in Italy.
Alternative has already shown, that the stability of the American political system that existed until recently is not due to the deep thoughtfulness of archaic laws, on the basis of which it acts, and on a decades-old consensus of elites, observance of the rules of the game, going beyond which is fraught with considerable shocks, what we are seeing now.
Well, in other "model" democratic countries, consistency is ensured by direct legislative norms.. First of all, this is a percentage barrier existing in many countries for parliamentary parties, and in Germany, for example, the norm applies, according to which an applicant for a seat in the Bundestag must have experience in the Landtag (land parliament), and before that - in the municipal council. T. it is. "Outsiders", outsiders, who have not passed all stages of their career in traditional parties, it is impossible to get into the German parliament, even for purely formal reasons.
The history of the right-wing populist Party of the State-Legal Offensive is indicative in this regard. (ABOUT), created by the Hamburg judge Ronald Schill and sensationally received 19 percent in the elections to the magistrate of Hamburg in 2001 year. Then the CDU had to enter into a coalition with Schill, giving him the post of Deputy Mayor and Minister of the Interior of Hamburg.
Parliamentary prospects for missile defense looked very promising, because Hamburg is a city, federal state, and therefore, deputies of the local Landtag had the right, having completed the cadence, run for the Bundestag. But, as usual, Shill got a lot of questions from law enforcement, scandals began to shake the party (and later it became known, that a significant part of its members were agents of the Federal Service for the Protection of the Constitution of Germany), and soon the party, and its leader left the political arena.
However, Soon this demanded niche was occupied by "Alternative for Germany", broke into the Bundestag, but this became possible due to the fact, that the party was founded by people from the CDU, already had the required parliamentary qualification.
Generally, democracy everywhere governed, and Vladimir Putin, who created one in Russia after the liberal-suicidal freemen of the 90s, just followed the patterns of Western countries, because only such a democracy is workable and can provide a balance between freedom and stability, the absence of which is fraught with permanent political, and therefore, and economic chaos.
The claims to him in this regard from the western "partners" are due to the fact, that Russian governed democracy is sovereign - it is not governed by Western intelligence services. And this is her main "crime". However, duplicity and hypocrisy of the West in this context, monopolization of the right to determine, what kind of democracy is real, and which one is not, are outside the scope of this material.
And of course, the controllability of the political process is impossible without it in the media sphere. Outwardly and here all the "decency" is observed, everything is allowed, what is not prohibited by law, and the list of such restrictions is quite reasonable. But there are mainstream media with millions of circulations, but there are small circulation, an amateur, t. it is. people, who are ready to look for alternative sources of information. But these are always an absolute minority..
This applies even more to radio, television. here, to earn, need to get a license, radio frequency (and their number was until recently limited by natural, physical, reasons), and without serious finance it is impossible to create a competitive product.
And the overwhelming majority of citizens were quite content with, what the media really served him with, and the difference in ratings between them perfectly created the illusion of freedom of opinion and providing the consumer with the opportunity to compare and form their personal position.
Only this difference in positions almost always fit into the acceptable range.. A reference example for me, how it works, became a commentary by one reader under an article in the New York Times, dedicated to Ukrainian events (I quote from memory): "Of course, Euromaidan is a people's revolution, after all, the Financial Times (conservative edition. - Auth.), and the Guardian (left-liberal) wrote about it ".
To this you can add, that human consciousness is very inertial: extremely rare, that, after reading one article or watching one TV story, even extremely convincing, a person would radically change their belief system. In the vast majority of cases, to achieve this, system work is needed, such information should flow to him.
If publications with an alternative view (which also appear in top media) occupy a small part in the total information flow, then their influence is extremely small, but adds a picture of "freedom of opinion", which only adds credibility to the, which is "correct".
I think, few would argue with that, that such an information space management system turned out to be much more effective, than the Soviet, when in the legal media there was only "the only correct opinion", slightly diluted with criticism of "certain shortcomings".
Soviet people perceived him more and more skeptically and actively looked for alternative sources of information in the "hostile voices". Another alternative was the people's telegraph, t. it is. gossip, regularly appearing and rolling throughout the country.
Remember how Vladimir Vysotsky sang?
And like flies, here and there
Rumor has it in their homes,
And the toothless old women
They are carried through the minds!
And I will note again, that the phenomenon of rumors was characteristic only of the USSR and, perhaps, other totalitarian countries. The average Western man was subconsciously convinced, that he learns about everything really significant from the media. "Conspiracy theories", according to which all key mass media are controlled and managed behind the scenes, were not widely spread among the broad masses.
But the Internet first appeared, and then social networks, and the system of public opinion control, debugged over decades, turned out to be outdated and losing its effectiveness. To get alternative information, there is no longer a need to buy some kind of marginal newspaper such as the Daily World organ of the American communists, or to catch and listen through the interference of the Moscow Radio Broadcasting, just click on the link.
Even more essential, that in an incredible number of times it has become easier to become not only a consumer of information, but also its source. Creating your own website is immeasurably easier, how to publish a newspaper, Well, the peak of this "holiday of self-expression" was the phenomenon of blogging. Moreover, the speed, and the scale of dissemination of any information has grown by orders of magnitude.
The Internet is quickly dubbed the world's dump, but the objective reality is, that the contents of this garbage can spread at an inconceivable speed, and without any regard to national borders, which also became a sign of new times.
Where are the old women from the song of Vysotsky, Rumored, to the world wide web! There is a new word "fake", but you need to understand, that many millions of users around the world found themselves in the position of Soviet citizens who were not accustomed to publicity, who believed in Kashpirovsky and Chumak (and not only in them) simply because, that "they just won't write in the newspaper and won't show it on TV". Widespread flat earth "theories", nuclear war in the 18th century, etc.. P. - a clear confirmation of this.
Accordingly, the possibilities of manipulating public consciousness, provoking great shocks have grown by an order of magnitude, than the mighty of this world did not fail to take advantage of. There was even the term "twitter revolution": social networks have become a key element of Maidan technologies around the world.
Moreover, the users of these technologies initially proceeded from the fact, that "it's impossible with us" (in first world countries), therefore, Western countries have always angrily condemned any attempts to restrict Internet freedom, which some countries have to resort to to protect their security.
But, "Don't swarm him to another". By all accounts, it is the skillful and creative use of Internet technologies that has become a key factor in the takeoff, and then the victories of a completely unsystematic Trump. To explain this, had to turn to primitive conspiracy theories and come up with Russian intervention via the Internet, which gradually led to the idea of the need to introduce censorship restrictions in the "main democracy of the world".
And now she has to put it into practice., t. it is. return to pre-Internet ways of regulating the information space. The similarity is, what, as then, we are not talking about official state censorship, but only about the editorial policy of the leading mass media, in the current case - Internet giants, owners of the most popular social networks, search engines and online stores.
Another thing, what's in the old, good times, such censorship was unobtrusive: well really, any newspaper or TV channel is not rubber and the work of the editorial board is, to define, what materials are the most interesting and important. Now the actions of the administration of the Internet giants are in the nature of open and brutal censorship., cutting out an unwanted politician, journalist or blogger from the information space.
Another point is global, supranational character of the new censorship. In this regard, the statement by the Foreign Minister of Germany Heiko Maas is indicative.: «Capitol violence in Washington DC shocked us all, but they didn't spring up like a bolt from the blue. After all, for years, social media offered President Trump the stage, with which he could spread lies and hate», - said Maas. «And then suddenly they banned Trump from using their platforms.», - he remarked. According to the minister, «their [social networks] business model is based on, to polarize».
In this regard,, Maas thinks, «you can't give the right to algorithms or managers in Silicon Valley to decide the issue, Where is the dividing line between freedom of expression and the criminal complaint of hatred?». «This should be determined by democratic parliaments and governments - based on the principles of the rule of law and respect for human rights», - he thinks. At the same time, Mass pointed out, what "The Internet knows no national boundaries». «Therefore, we must establish international standards», - suggested the minister.
«We want to interact with partners around the world, to achieve the benefits of modern technology for democracy. I'm sure, that the US president [Joseph] Biden will be a strong partner here», - said the German minister.
Translated from the diplomatic head of the German Foreign Office is concerned, of course, not by the omnipotence of private traders (firmly linked to the American deep state), and the, that the American authorities will carry out global censorship, and encourages them to involve their allies in this process, so that their interests are taken into account, and most importantly, so that the Americans do not use their monopoly to influence internal German processes (after all, any German politician can be cut, like Trump).
In this case, we are already talking about direct censorship by the state or a group of states.. Really, old methods of soft control in the new era do not look as effective. Internet monopolists as such at a certain stage in the development of the world wide web, they may also cease to be such in the future.
The process of users leaving for more liberal social networks has already begun, and, as I noted above, change internet preferences, all the more to expand them to new sites and social networks, users are immeasurably easier, how to change your favorite newspaper or TV channel in the old days.
Moreover, the sites for hosting hosting are easy to transfer anywhere in the world.. The social network Parler, which has become the object of repression, has already moved its hosting to Russia. Generally, while other methods of effective control of the Internet space, except for strictly prohibitive administrative, Western elites have not found, although, maybe, actively looking for them.
The main conclusion from this story is simple: you can grovel as much as you like about the highest value of freedom and democratic values, but, when the methods of hidden control of the information space and political processes stop working, Western elites use the entire administrative resource without complexes.
Dmitry Slavskii,
