With social media companies engaging in censorship and algorithm based suppression and the establishment attacking independent journalists and anyone who does not toe the corporate line with the libelous term “fake news”, it is getting harder and harder for non-affiliated reporters and independent journalists to sustain our voices and remain a going concern. This is a development that should alarm everyone not just those who endeavor to uphold the principles of journalism; where people in power conspire to silence the free press, they are digging a grave for freedom.
I can’t state to you how vital independent journalists to a free society. Where our counterparts in corporate media have to cater to sponsors, non-affiliated reporters are not bound by the pressures of revenue streams and profit motives. But choosing a life of independent journalism is like Sisyphus pushing a boulder up a hill with one arm tied behind his back. We push on regardless; our strength is not in unlimited resources and boundless budgets that corporate media enjoys, we depend on our audience to magnify our work. An engaged readership and dedicated audience is the only way we can break through and influence the public conversation. Independent journalists depend on people like you to amplify our voices and let others know about us and the work that we are doing.
Which is why the actions of Google, Facebook and Twitter are so pernicious; by engaging in stealth suppression and overt censorship, these multi-billion dollar companies are making it almost impossible for independent journalists to have an impact [read They Came for Dissenters]. This is akin to Goliath trying to abort David while he is in the womb. We already live in a paradigm where 90%+ of the news and information we consume as a public is owned by six companies. Let me put this in stark relief, six people own almost ALL the information that we depend on to inform our decisions as individuals and as a nation. Do we really want to allow six people to own 100% of the airwaves and internet and by extension the information that is broadcast through them?
Let me give you some of the ways you can spot Facebook, Google and Twitter engaging in nefarious practices of corporate censorship. Have you seen people post a status update and then put in their status “check link in comment section” or where there is an article without the corresponding highlight thumbnail? This is people trying to get around the algorithm blocks that Facebook has erected where news sources that do not originate from paying companies (i.e. corporate media) are suppressed or outright blocked. Go to YouTube and watch this video I uploaded a while back ago, this video has been stuck 3,477 for weeks. I’ve seen five different watch this video personally this week and yet the video count has not budged in weeks. Twitter takes their turn at censorship by shadow banning and banning people for the most nebulous of reasons. This is what we are up against as independent journalists.
This type of concerted effort to silence free speech and nullify a free press is common in developing nations where tyrants rule through brute strength. It is astounding that the same practice deployed by tin pot despots is being implemented right here in America and in western nations throughout the world. But we are too distracted by endless sensationalism and outrage to realize the true outrage that is taking place as corporate boardrooms and bureaucrats in Washington DC plot to eviscerate the first amendment and our collective rights along with it. Established journalists, who should be sounding the alarm, instead make a mockery of journalism by peddling yellow propaganda as news. The irony, the tagline for the Washington Post, which is owned by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, reads “democracies die in the dark”. As corporate media hacks drown liberty, they get to sell it as news.
There is only one way to overcome this systematic attack on free press. We, the people, must say enough and reclaim media from the hands of corporatism and moneyed interests. So we ask you, our readers, to be a part of our journey and to be active participants in this debate of “fee speech” versus free speech. We appreciate everyone who comes to the Ghion Journal daily and counts themselves as dedicated readers. We ask you to keep engaged and keep telling others about us. In order to get around the suppression of non-corporate news that social media corporations like Facebook, Google and Twitter keep engaging in, we ask that you sign up for the push notifications at in the bottom right hand corner where you see the red bell so that you get instant notification when articles are published.
Use the embed below to sign up to our newsletter where you will get email notification of news stories. All articles are bundled as one email and delivered in the morning so that your inbox does not get flooded with our emails. You can also sign up on the right hand side or the bottom of the website where there is a signup form embedded as a widget. As you get the emails, forward them to your friends and family so that we can circumvent the roadblocks too many independent journalists are being met with. Check the Ghion Cast below where I explain the model that I’m hoping to implement if this is your first time finding out about us. Thank you as always, may collective action win out over injustice and our connected hopes be greater than our differences.
Lastly, we ask you to keep telling others about us and use your own words to convey the importance of what you find at the Ghion Journal to your network of friends and family. We believe change only comes from us—we are one irrespective of our differences—that is why we disavow corporate sponsorship and ad revenues all together. We believe that much in the ability of motivated thinkers and readers to make the impossible happen. So I, along with my fellow writers and sojourners at the Ghion Journal, ask you to empower us where the status quo is busy trying to shut out independent journalists from the process. #StopCorporateCensorship
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Teodrose Fikremariam
Latest posts by Teodrose Fikremariam (see all)
- A Reflection in a Time of Turmoil - June 4, 2020
- Ethiopia’s Choice: Poverty through Grievance or Prosperity through Unity - September 9, 2019
- Bloody 60s: the Decade that Aborted Leadership in America - August 22, 2019
