In general, the really bad ideas from the current regime are touted with the most positive, or at least benign-sounding, intent. Getting rid of environmental regulations will make the country more “competitive,” for instance.
When I first saw the article Homeland Security to Compile Database of Journalists, Bloggers, I seriously thought it was fake news. But it’s no hoax.
“On 3 April 2018, a solicitation for services posted by… [DHS] appeared on the U.S. Federal Business Opportunities website — a system that allows private contractors to bid on providing goods or services to the United States government. That solicitation…, titled ‘Media Monitoring Services,’ seeks a contractor to create a searchable database of information about journalists, social media ‘influencers,’ and media outlets.”
This is so consequential that it has been covered by media in India, Japan, and elsewhere. Presumably the database is designed to… well, I’m not sure.
The Forbes article speaks to my concerns:
“Unfortunately, increasing government encroachment on the freedom of the press is the sinister backdrop to all of this. Freedom House, which has monitored the status of the press for nearly 40 years, recently concluded that global media freedom has reached its lowest level in the past 13 years. The independent watchdog organization blames ‘new threats to journalists and media outlets in major democracies’ as well as ‘further crackdowns on independent media in authoritarian countries like Russia and China.’ And then it goes one step further.
“But it is the far-reaching attacks on the news media and their place in a democratic society by Donald Trump, first as a candidate and now as president of the United States, that fuel predictions of further setbacks in the years to come.”
Snopes “reached out to DHS to ask if media reports suggesting this was an effort to compile political information on journalists were unfounded, as well as to ask for details about how this effort will enhance national security. In response, DHS directed us to a tweet from Homeland Security spokesperson Tyler Q. Houlton, who confirmed the data collection…”
Houlton posted: “Despite what some reporters may suggest, this is nothing more than the standard practice of monitoring current events in the media. Any suggestion otherwise is fit for tin foil hat wearing, black helicopter conspiracy theorists.”
Well, THAT makes me feel a WHOLE lot better. Yeah, right. Hmm, I wonder if I’m considered a “social media influencer.” My Klout score has been going down recently, so maybe DHS won’t notice me…
The issue with the internet is that it tends to firm up and polarise your own views. So it means it has become a very unbalanced place. So there are hard choices in protection v free speech. I think personally the line is where it impacts another disproportionally. But that should not be the only test, I think to cause offence is fine, but its when your offence causes real harm to others and then it should only be looked at if it’s going to cause such harm if left unchecked. So easy topic to test would be issues of child exploitation. Where it gets harder is when you’re looking to affect people political opinions. So most people share views on Germany during WW2, but should it be illegal to have an opposite opinion?
Considering the constant parade of lies and deliberate disinformation coming from the current regime, it’s only prudent to think they may have bad motives for compiling a database of people journalists and bloggers. They already have a history of trying to punish media outlets whose reporting they don’t like, as well as promoting the ones they do, so it’s not much of a leap from there to think they could use the database to target opponents of the regime with lies, smears, and disinformation (possibly in the form of middle of the night Tweets…), and they could similarly use the database to reward and promote those who parrot their spin uncritically.
Prior to this regime, I’d have called such worries paranoid conspiracy theories. But with what we’ve seen in real life over the past 14 long months, the burden of proof is entirely on the current regime: They have to prove it really is an innocent move, and we don’t have to believe them until they do.
I want to know if they have a form I can fill out so I can get my blog on their targeted list.