If Houellebecq at the time spoke of the extension of the field of struggle, the field of censorship continues to spread frankly or insidiously. Recently, the European Union promoted semantic censorship among journalists and communicators. Editions Au bord de l’eau bring their complacent scissors with the publication of a book entitled Internet against Interh @ te, 50 proposals to detox social networks . Analysis of a mutant variant of the digital thought font.
The Internet which represents a new space of freedom worries the dominant thought. And if the reader / listener / spectator would think for himself outside the dominant discourse? Worse, if he would express himself without a good Samaritan filter his speech? A relevant solution: put a gag beforehand. And supervise it closely, for its good.
Respect first and foremost
The rappers — all worthy of esteem, well behaved and respectful — have only one word in their mouths: the refect . Respect, key word of the aforementioned work. Through the hunt (involuntarily comic) to the “bad words” the authors immolate the pastries heads of negro, settle his account to the pain with the elbow called little Jew and other heads of Turkish . Even if ” bringing these old-fashioned expressions to trial is often perceived as an attack on freedom of expression ” (sic). To protect young blond heads (brunettes or redheads) the same must be true for the digital because ” the parody is acceptable if it does not carry xenophobic or racist ideas for the purpose of exclusion “. Sin by intent is as serious as sin by action, how to warn poor fishermen? And how to punish sin? By excluding the impediments to think of each other.
Respect by the digital gag
If good things — the book says — have been made by the German authorities by imposing by law the possibility of heavy fines for access providers and owners of social networks that would spread “hate speech”, the authors swarm nice ideas to ” install respect and positive thinking “, in other words to re-educate the public. Some examples :
- Establish a digital compliance barometer that ” measures site compliance “. Non-compliant you will be standardized.
- Creation of a database of conspiracy sites and ” creation of an index of platforms specialized in hate “. The blacklisting — once a specialty of the Catholic Church — is back on the agenda this time dressed in new modernist attire.
- Creation of a label for companies, liberal professions, Internet users who ” choose a certified external control of their level of compliance “. It is doubtful whether the authors have re-read this phrase that evokes irresistibly 1984 George Orwell, Vichy or the sweet Stalinist era.
- Creation of educational tools to help educators raise awareness of ” methods of fighting against the interest “. Propaganda must start at school.
The rest is in keeping. An editor of the Observatory of Journalism has tried to follow these fifty prescriptions literally for a month, he sent us a long letter, summarizing his experience, which we extract the last lines:
THE STRUGGLE WAS
FINISHED HE HAD RECEIVED VICTORY ON
HIMSELF HE WAS BIG BROTHER
Amen.
Everyone will have recognized the last three sentences of Winston Smith, George Orwell’s unfortunate 1984 hero .
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