Phunk 'Em: Don't like the censorship, the banning, the shadow banning? Take action.

Now the power that is being arrayed against us is only there because they have been free environments for a very long time. In fact some people reading this may never have actually experienced a world without Google.

They have spread and they are now Multi-national. When we hear globalism as a term, they are all for that as for the most part THEY are already aspects of that.

They don't need to claim they are any particular nation as they are spread across many of them.

Though they have become very integral to the way we do things. So much so that it can be scary to imagine a world without them, and some people panic simply because they never have known a world without them.

Who are they?

Well for purposes of this post I am referring to the following:

• Google (Alphabet Corp family member
• Facebook
• Youtube (Yes, part of Alphabet Corp family)
• Twitter

All of those places have become incredibly important to our society. They tie into virtually every facet of life at this point in some nations.

Yet, many of us remember living without them.

Many of us remember when they were in their infancy, had problems they had to work through, and the experience got better, and better.

Back then getting attached to something tech or web related it was common for it to become obsolete, or just fail due to stupid company decisions.

We developed a bit of patience. We knew that with some patience and support on our part these places would grow, and thrive.

Google in particular thrived largely due to it seeming to fit its motto "Don't be evil" which back then they seemed to understand what that word "evil" was meaning. Power corrupts. It has done so for Google. Now days "evil" simply means anyone that has a different perspective than Google or Alphabet Corporate members. Screw free speech. They have forgotten "Don't be evil" and have instead changed it to "Stop evil" and they seem to actually believe that is what they are doing. They may not recall history and how easy it is to hijack such a narrative, and how easy it is to create an echo chamber to vilify pretty much any idea people want to. They seem to forget that the majority of the German people did not think they were being evil or supporting evil with Hitler and the Nazi's were purging those that did not fit their world view.

This is the Google of today. It is manned largely by an echo chamber that is so certain that it is right that it has reached the point where they believe censoring any views that differ is "good". They believe that making certain that people they don't like cannot find funding or support of any kind is "good". They believe people calling for violence, murder, or civil rights violations against people is ONLY unacceptable if it is someone they disagree with.

They don't understand. They are the modern day people of Germany who think they are supporting a righteous cause, but in reality it is pushing the same narrative and same approaches that the Nazis, and other tyrannical oppressors used. They all thought they had the right to censor as well. They all thought burning books was okay. They were certain they were the "good" people.

This is Google. Yet they are not alone in this. I simply use them as an example because they are the opposite of what their motto "Don't be evil" meant and what endeared many people (myself included) to them. There were times myself and others dreamed of maybe someday working for them. Now I have no such desire and the thought turns my stomach.

Google... You ARE the embodiment of evil at the moment. There is good news though. You don't have to remain that way. Though this post is assuming you, and your Youtube partner, as well as Facebook, and Twitter will continue down this manipulation and global control path while silencing the voices of all challengers, whether those challengers have any valid points or not.

With that in mind...

What can the rest of us do?

We can remember there is life without these platforms. Unlike the past there are already replacements for ALL of these platforms. They may not be as developed or as far along, but with your patience and support they can be.

Google

Google: Instead of using google as your search engine consider DuckDuckGo. If you use things like Google Apps (I do to) then you may have to give up the convenience of simultaneous sharing and easy of the cloud with them. You could switch to using things like Libre Office (Open Office). There are likely alternatives for most of the apps and you may have to sacrifice a little convenience and some things may take a little more effort on your part. Yet isn't that better than continuing to support an oppressor simply because they save you a few minutes here and there. Are you willing to give up a little bit of your comfort to resist tyranny? DuckDuckGo has another beneficial quality. It doesn't track you.

Another Google product is the Chrome browser. You don't have to use it. You can use Firefox, Opera, or any number of other browsers. Sure you may lose some features you like, and you may gain others. Would you rather support tyranny for your momentary comfort?

A big part of Google's success I believe is because so many of us tech enthusiasts who have been involved in the internet for a very long time saw them upholding that motto "Don't be evil" and they seemed to get it. There is a danger when they decide to change that to "Stop evil" because then they can easily become ruled by subjective interpretations of who is evil. When it was simply "Don't be evil" they were introspective and focused on their own actions. Once it became "Stop" then it became a FORCE applied to other people, forcing their compliance or labeling them. They are very different things with very different outcomes. I actually think the "Stop Evil" path even with good intentions is likely to always lead to witch hunts and the attempt at forcing conformity. "Resist Evil" would be okay too if you are introspective and the only person you are focused on changing is yourself. Once you force people, and deny the choice from people, you become evil.

"Good Ideas Don't Require Force"

As to your Android phones. I'm in that same boat with you. iPhone and Apple are no better, and with their announcement of moving to China and giving a lot of control to China it may end up worse. Yet, there really is no competitor that I am aware of for these two platforms. This is a problem area.

Twitter

I am no expert on Twitter. For those of you that follow me, do you truly believe I'd stand a chance at saying anything within their small character limits?

I also see people thinking that little blurbs these days are sufficient to rebut or convey deep meaning when often they are not. I also see a growing number of people that only read the title to things and don't actually read the rest.

Is this the byproduct of expecting everything in bite sized chunks?

I can't say. I don't use Twitter.

Many of you probably do. Good news there has been an alternative for Twitter for awhile. Yet both Android and iPhone made sure getting the app for it on your phone was very difficult.

Gab.ai

Facebook

Now you are not going to find something exactly like it. So what? It took time for it to become what it is. There was life without it, and as someone who experienced it you can live quite fine without it. In fact you might be happier.

However, there are alternatives. You are reading on one such alternative now, and I personally would recommend the steem blockchain based sites like steemit.com, and busy.org over any other alternatives.

I might have mentioned Medium in the past, but they just recently joined the censorship push as well. That platform should die if it is going to go that route. If you were using Medium then I recommend you seriously consider whether you wish to continue doing so.

I don't know why people wouldn't use steem blockchain based platforms. Sure they are in their infancy and need your patience and they develop slower as designing decentralized applications is far more challenging than centralized ones. Yet you cannot be censored, and you can get paid in crypto currency just by using them. If you don't know crypto currency and it seems scary then using steem blockchain based platforms will make that more and more easy to understand too and can be a gateway to preparing you for the inevitable rise of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology in the future.

Youtube

Youtube developed into a very nice platform and it wasn't initially part of Alphabet Corp and Google. They snagged it as they did numerous other projects with potential.

It also has gotten easier and easier to use. It is so easy that for many people trying something else and deciding not to really boils down to they may have to do a little more, or have a little more patience. What are you willing to give up to resist tyranny?

I recommend d.tube at this point as it is on the steem blockchain so any of us using it can reward each other without having some central corporation which gets to decide if they want to censor it or not.

The body of the post is on the steem blockchain, and the videos themselves are stored in IPFS (Interplanetary File System) which is also decentralized and thus the current belief is that your videos cannot be censored.

There are other choices such as bitchute which uses peer to peer technology much like bittorrents. Yet ultimately I personally believe IPFS has far more potential as someone who has been using torrents for a long time I am familiar with seeds, quality of seeds, etc and how that can make or break properly getting a torrent.

Plus, tying the steem blockchain in so we can award each other in an economy that has been thriving for over two years is a no brainer as far as I am concerned.

However, if bitchute is something you want to check out, by all means do so. At least it is not youtube. It is also nice looking and they did a great job. I am just personally a steem blockchain zealot so I do have some bias.

Guess what? Why not use both places?

Conclusion

There are other big entities like Amazon out there which are also potential future dangers, and maybe present dangers for some. I am not going to tackle them in this post.

Obviously until content creators switch from the evil censorship ridden platforms all of us are likely to still have to use them to see and communicate about certain things.

Yet let's defang this beast and start working on moving our content, and being less and less reliant on them. If they want to censor and dictate what we are allowed to think and say then I say Phunk 'em! Stop using their services as quickly as you reasonably can.

Leave them with those that can exist in echo chambers of conformity without it turning their stomachs.

Go to places where people you disagree with completely still have a voice, and that due to this you are exposed to things you otherwise would not hear, or think. Sometimes even if you disagree they might introduce you to something new that makes sense and changes your world. People often forget just because we may disagree on a great deal of things there are usually some new ideas that we learn from interacting with those who are not in an echo chamber with us.

In fact when it comes to diversity. True diversity is in how people think, and how they act. It has nothing to do with skin color.

Those championing diversity today are often those who would silence or attack anyone that disagrees with them. They are not seeking diversity. They are seeking conformity.

A diverse crowd of ideas has a much better chance of solving problems than a crowd of people that all think the same.

Let's take action.

I have been slowly, but surely.

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With how crazy on censorship Youtube has become within the last week it'd be nice if there were a tool to help people migrate their entire video library from youtube accounts to D.Tube. That may be a tall order, but I suspect it'd be really popular at this minute since some people have lost over a decade of interviews and videos due to the youtube purge. We have lost those interviews and what they may have held as well. A modern day book burning.

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Yes, that first video is a youtube embed. It was something I was thinking of when I started this post. It is not my content so I didn't want to just move it to D.TUBE.