Add my "what went wrong" take to the pile

[moniss]

102. You are very correct about the algorithms

etc. They know that tyrants shut down the means for people to receive messaging critical of them for a reason and they have stated for years who they see as an "enemy within" and how they want to silence them. I have tried hard, along with others, to impress upon people the danger of what we, as older people, already lived through. There was alternative voices and media trying to speak out in the '50's and early '60's. But most people today don't understand that much of that voice was actively suppressed and there is a reason it was called "underground". I remember when you had to "know" which places had a publication available and it was not out in plain sight. I can remember in cities with major newspapers they would get ordinances passed about who could have a newspaper distribution box strapped to a streetlight pole and it sure as hell was not the local "underground" paper that was telling the truth about McCarthy or Vietnam. I can remember when campus newspapers would often be pulled from circulation by the college administration.

I can remember having to sneak writings etc. Because if you got caught by people who had any authority, whether it was cops, city fathers or school officials, they could make your life hell and many times did. These things are not just some stories from a book about long ago. This was our lives. Do this stuff in a risky environment and you may well be beaten or worse. We should not think for one moment that they won't be like this again. I'm not saying we flinch or knuckle under but I am saying I think people have no idea how fast and how bad it can get to try to voice opinions that go against what the tyrants want.

It can be a matter of minutes rather than months. Think of it like now in the internet age when we have a tyrant who can make a "DOS attack" a strategy to be employed by a "Ministry of Truth" sort of operation. The analog version was in the '50's with suppression and harassment coupled with government "propaganda" films, planted interviews on TV and in print etc. When we see these old films and articles today we sort of laugh at how awful and obvious they were. But at the time people took this stuff as gospel and they behaved and acted accordingly.