Donald Trump’s election in 2016 infuriated the establishment.
He was able to get around the narratives of corporate gatekeepers.
And Mitt Romney and a top Biden official revealed the jaw-dropping reason why one company was banned.
Brexit and the election of Donald Trump, both major events in 2016, taught the global elites that they did not have monopoly control on the narrative.
People were able to make their voices heard on social media.
Silencing dissent
That’s why the establishment has ramped up its efforts to crack down on “disinformation” and “misinformation.”
In other words, things that the establishment does not like must be censored.
One stark example was the COVID-19 pandemic, where true information was suppressed.
And during a chat at the McCain Institute, Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) and Secretary of State Tony Blinken broached the topic of why Congress moved so quickly to ban TikTok.
The social media giant—which is owned by ByteDance, a company allegedly under the thumb of the Chinese Communist Party—was given the ultimatum to shut down in the United States or sell to an American company approved by Congress.
Romney asked Blinken why “the PR has been so awful” for Israel in the Gaza war, and Blinken blamed TikTok.
Romney said, “Why has Hamas disappeared in terms of public perception? . . . An offer is on the table for a ceasefire and yet the world is screaming about Israel.”
More outlets of information
Blinken blamed the fact that people no longer exclusively get their news from the major print newspapers or the handful of corporate news outlets.
He explained, “Now of course we’re on an intravenous feed of information with new impulses, inputs every millisecond,”
TikTok, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube have become common sources of information for billions of people.
Blinken continued, “And of course the way this has played out on social media has dominated the narrative. You have a social media ecosystem, environment in which context, history, facts get lost and the emotion, the impact of images dominate. We can’t discount that, but I think it also has a very very challenging effect on the narrative.”
Romney agreed and said that that was why “there was such overwhelming support for us to potentially shut down TikTok.”
The TikTok bill had been defeated before but finally got a surge of support as Joe Biden has increased U.S. military involvement in the war in Gaza.
Secretary Blinken also pointed out the “inescapable reality” that Palestinian civilians “continue to suffer grievously” as a result of the war.
“We have to be focused on that and attentive to that,” Blinken added.
Similar to the disastrous War on Terror, foreign conflicts are being used as a justification to limit the rights of Americans in the United States.
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) was one of the people who opposed the bill.
He wrote on Twitter, “The so-called TikTok ban is a trojan horse. The President will be given the power to ban WEB SITES, not just Apps. The person breaking the new law is deemed to be the U.S. (or offshore) INTERNET HOSTING SERVICE or App Store, not the ‘foreign adversary.’”
The establishment wants and needs the power to shut people up.
Stay tuned to Unmuzzled News for any updates to this ongoing story.
