Facebook bans American President Donald Trump from it's platform followed by other tech companies. This raises the pertinent question. Who gave a private company rights to censor the Head of State of the country of their operation?
After throwing a formal hint yesterday, today, Facebook banned Donald Trump.
This is quickly followed by a ban by a list of companies.
The question is this. Who is Mark Zuckerberg to censor the Head of the State of the country of his residence? The truth is, Big Tech is not on leash. Whatever be the moral stand they are taking, ultimately, the truth is that they are subservient to the law of the country of their operation. Let me pose a question.
Trump tweets Baghdadi Killed.
Is it a matter of pride for America or will the Big Tech censor that bit of news stating, they don’t condone violence? In other words, who decides what the President of America should say or not to say?
Keeping the actual issue aside, the real question is, who decides what is offensive and what is not? How robust is their decision making, and who actually verified it’s robustness? Who gave it a legal sanction?
Going by the recent controversy over the Garbage-In-Garbage-Out situation with the recent GPT3 175 Billion Model of OpenAI seriously raising the questions over the quality of automatic algorithms,
it makes one wonder if the models are robust enough. If a search for Hinduism returns Pakistani or Kashmir, I seriously have a problem with that model.
Naturally, the companies are dragged before a senate hearing over their known biases and lack of accountability
and acts like censoring the President of USA makes one seriously question
why such companies are not brought under control. It’s no more about whether Trump is right or Biden is right – or who is the President of USA or whether the views of the President conflict with yours. The question here is much sinister and sadly, no one seems to have opened their mouth over this – till now. There are some voices noticed today, ultimately raising the pertinent point – who gave them a right to exercise sovereignty over President of America.
After the 1971 Indo-Pak War in which India dismembered Pakistan into two countries, an Indian politician lauded the then Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by saying “India is Indira and Indira is India”. This is the crux of the issue we are seeing across the globe and not just in USA. Hate Trump, no problem. But, don’t hate the President of United States of America. In a live TV debate when someone praised the killers of Indira Gandhi, even before Congress, the party she is from was able to counter, BJP opposed the statement by saying, “We don’t condone such language against the killers of the Prime Minister of India”. Both the parties are at cudgels over everything including over Indira Gandhi. But placing petty differences aside and rising to the need of the day is something which one wants to look in USA now.
Capitol Hill is breached? FBI and Senate are already dealing with it. Who let that happen? Punish them in the next elections. But jeering in support when someone takes law into his hands and imposing his own rules? Let the Vice President and Senate handle how to muzzle Trump. Had the same gag order come from the government of the day, the reaction would have been different. But, if it comes from an unaccountable individual who runs a private company?
Someone shared a very relevant bit by Carl Sagan.
MAGA or whatever you may call it. Do your part to ensure that America is run by American Government. Clearly, this is not how you want your country to be run.
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